1650 Feb 11, Rene Descartes
(b.1596), French mathematician and philosopher: "I think therefore I
am", died in Stockholm. In 1666 his bones were exhumed for transfer
to France. In 2008 Russell Shorto authored “Descartes’ Bones: A
Skeletal History of the conflict Between Faith and Reason."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren%C3%A9_Descartes)(SFC, 11/5/08,
p.E3)

1662 Feb 11, The Prins Willem,
built in 1643 as flagship of the Dutch East India Company, sank off
Madagascar. A replica, built in the 1980s, burned down at Den Helder
in 2009.
(AP, 7/30/09)(http://tinyurl.com/mteqbf)

1805 Feb 11, At Fort Mandan ND
Sacajawea (16), the Shoshoni guide for Lewis & Clark, gave birth
to a son, with Meriwether Lewis serving as midwife. Sacagawea, the
young Native American girl who aided the Lewis and Clark Expedition,
was of the Lemhi Shoshones, who made their home in what is now
southeastern Idaho and southwestern Montana. About 1800 Sacagawea
was captured by a Hidatsa raiding party at the Three Forks of the
Missouri River. Sometime in 1804, she and another woman were
purchased by French-Canadian fur trapper Toussaint Charbonneau, who
lived among the Hidatsa and Mandan Indians, to be his wives.
(HN, 2/11/99)(HNQ, 12/1/99)(AH, 2/05, p.17)

1812 Feb 11, Alexander Hamilton
Stephens (d.1883), Vice Pres (Confederacy), was born near
Crawfordville, Georgia. Stephens, who served in the U.S. House of
Representatives from 1843 to 1859, was a delegate at the Montgomery
meeting that formed a new union of the seceded states. He was
elected vice president to Jefferson Davis on February 9, 1861.
Stephens was later elected governor of Georgia in 1882 but died
after serving just a few months.
(HNQ, 5/24/98)(MC, 2/11/02)
1812 Feb 11, Massachusetts Gov.
Elbridge Gerry signed a re-districting law that favored his
party, giving rise to the term "gerrymandering." His district was
shaped like a salamander.
(AP, 2/11/97)(Econ, 10/9/10, p.20)

1815 Feb 11, News of the Treaty
of Ghent, ending the War of 1812, finally reached the United States.
(HN, 2/11/99)

1818 Feb 11, In Louisiana sugar
plantation owner Levi Foster sold to his in-laws the slaves named
Kit (28) for $975 and Alick (9) for $400. In 2000 Gwendolyn Midlo
Hall and LSU Press published a CD-ROM database on Louisiana slave
transactions: “Databases for the Study of Afro-Louisiana History and
Genealogy, 1699-1860: Computerized Information from Original
Manuscript Sources."
(SFEC, 7/30/00, p.)(www.afrigeneas.com)

1828 Feb 11, Dewitt Clinton
(b.1769), American politician and naturalist. He had served as a US
Senator, 2-time governor of New York state and 3-time mayor of NYC.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeWitt_Clinton)

1839 Feb 11, Missouri slave
owner James Rollins (1812-1888) helped establish the state’s first
public university. He served in the US House of Representatives from
1861-1865. The Univ. of Missouri admitted its first black students
in 1950.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_S._Rollins)(Econ, 1/2/16, p.18)

1847 Feb 11, American inventor
Thomas Alva Edison was born in Milan, Ohio. He was the inventor of
the first electric light bulb and pioneer of the motion picture
industry. He also Invented at least 1,300 other items.
(HN, 2/11/97)(AP, 2/11/97)

1852 Feb 11, The 1st British
public female toilet opened at Bedford Street in London.
(MC, 2/11/02)

1855 Feb 11, Josephine Marshall
Jewell Dodge, American educator, pioneer in the concept of day
nurseries for children, was born.
(HN, 2/11/01)

1858 Feb 11, Bernadette
Soubirous (14), a French miller’s daughter, claimed for the first
time to have seen a vision of the Virgin Mary near Lourdes.
(AP, 2/11/97)(HN, 1/11/02)

1861 Feb 11, President-elect
Lincoln departed Springfield, Ill., for Washington.
(AP, 2/11/97)
1861 Feb 11, The US House
unanimously passed a resolution guaranteeing noninterference with
slavery in any state.
(MC, 2/11/02)
1861 Feb 11, Australian
explorers Burke and Wills approached the coast of Carpetaria but
were forced to turn back when no path through the coastal marsh was
found.
(ON, 12/01, p.2,3)

1888 Feb 11, In Brazil
volunteer police commissioner Joaquin Firmino de Araujo Cunha was
murdered in Rio do Peixe, a town which later changed its name to
Itapira. The man responsible for the murder was reported to be James
Warne, a British-born American doctor and slave owner.
(Econ, 12/21/13, p.48)

1904 Feb 11, President Theodore
Roosevelt proclaimed strict neutrality for the U.S. in the
Russo-Japanese War.
(HN, 2/11/97)

1907 Feb 11, William J. Levitt,
U.S. businessman and community builder, was born. He led the postwar
housing revolutions with his Levittowns.
(HN, 2/11/99)
1907 Feb 11, The passenger ship
Larchmont was steaming through a winter storm in heavy seas, 4 miles
southwest of Watch Hill, Rhode Island when she was rammed by the
coal carrying schooner Harry P. Knowles, which had drifted off
course in the blizzard. The Larchmont sank in 10 minutes and only 19
men including the captain, George McVey survived the ordeal.
(http://rhodeisland-philatelic.com/rhodeisland/postcard120.htm)

1926 Feb 11, Paul Bocuse,
French chef (Legion of Honor), was born.
(MC, 2/11/02)
1926 Feb 11, The Mexican
government nationalized all church property. Pres. Plutarco Elias
Calles, founder of the modern Mexican political system, tried to
suppress the Church. This fomented the Cristiada, 3 years of
rebellion and outright war.
(WSJ, 8/13/97, p.A12)(Econ, 1/11/14, p.30)

1929 Feb 11, The Lateran Treaty
was signed, with Italy recognizing the independence and sovereignty
of Vatican City. The Italian government, under dictator Benito
Mussolini, paid the Vatican $91.7 million for the papal lands it
seized in 1870. The Italian state agreed to supply water but the
disposal of waste was not specified. This became a big issue in
1999.
(SFEM, 1/19/96, p.10)(AP, 2/11/97)(WSJ, 12/3/99,
p.A1)(Econ, 7/12/14, p.68)

1936 Feb 11, Burt Reynolds,
actor (Evening Shade, Strip Tease, Cannonball Run), was born in
Michigan.
(MC, 2/11/02)
1936 Feb 11, Pumping began for
the creation of Treasure Island in SF Bay.
(www.treasureislandfestival.com/island.php)
1936 Feb 11, The Reich arrested
150 Catholic youth leaders in Berlin. When the war was over many of
the leaders of the Reich were put on trial for the atrocities that
had been committed.
(HN, 2/11/97)

1937 Feb 11, In Flint, Mich., a
sit-down strike against General Motors ended after 44 days, with the
company agreeing to recognize the United Automobile Workers Union.
The UAW was victorious in a strike against GM. GM recognized the
union and agreed to a contract.
(WSJ, 6/19/96, Adv. Supl)(AP, 2/11/97)

1938 Feb 11, The 4th Lithuanian
parliament accepted Lithuania’s 3rd Constitution, which was
proclaimed May 12, 1938. The Constitution reduced the powers of the
Seimas. It could only consider the draft laws and give
recommendations to the president.
(DrEE, 10/5/96, p.5)(LHC, 2/11/03)
1938 Feb 11, In Romania Carol
II, who had banned political parties and established a royal
dictatorship, chose Miron Cristea (1868-1939) to be the Prime
Minister, a position from which he served for about a year.
Patriarch Miron Cristea, who led the Romanian Orthodox Church from
1925 to 1939, was responsible for revising the citizenship law,
stripping about 225,000 Jews, or 37% of the Jewish population, of
their Romanian citizenship.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miron_Cristea)(AP,
8/3/10)

1942 Feb 11, The German
battleships Gneisenau, Scharnhorst and Prinz Eugen began their famed
channel dash from the French port of Brest. Their journey took them
through the English Channel on their way back to Germany.
(HN, 2/11/99)

1948 Feb 11, Sergei Eisenstein
(b.1898 in Latvia), Russian film director, died. He pioneered the
dialectic montage where 2 films shots were arranged to clash in
order to produce an emotional or intellectual response in the
viewer. In 1999 Ronald Bergan published the biography: "Sergei
Eisenstein: A Life In Conflict."
(SFEC, 5/2/99, BR p.1,10)(MC, 2/11/02)

1951 Feb 11, Kwame Nkrumah won
the 1st parliamentary election on Gold coast (Ghana).
(MC, 2/11/02)
1951 Feb 11, U.N. forces pushed
north across the 38th parallel once again. Forty-five years after
shipping out to fight in Korea, Col. Harry Summers, Jr., got new
insight into what the war had been all about.
(HN, 2/11/97)

1959 Feb 11, Iran turned down
Soviet aid in favor of a U.S. proposal for aid.
(HN, 2/11/97)

1960 Feb 11, Jack Paar walked
off his TV show.
(MC, 2/11/02)

1963 Feb 11, A CIA Domestic
Operations Division was created.
(MC, 2/11/02)
1963 Feb 11, Sylvia Plath (30),
American writer, committed suicide by gas in London after Ted Hughes
left her for another woman. Her autobiographical novel "The Bell
Jar" was published this year. She had been married to English poet
Ted Hughes (d.1998), who in 1998 published a 198 page book of verse
"Birthday Letters" based on their relationship. The woman for whom
Hughes left Plath committed suicide 5 years later. Plath’s 1981
"Collected Poems" won a Pulitzer Prize. The Plath book of poems
"Ariel" was published after her death. In 2000 her uncensored
diaries: "The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath," were edited by
Karen V. Kukil. Carl Rollyson authored “American Isis: The Life and
Art of Sylvia Plath" (2013). Andrew Wilson authored “Mad Girl’s Love
Song: Sylvia Plath and Life Before Ted" (2013).
(SFC, 1/19/98, p.A10)(SFEC, 2/1/98, p.C5)(SFEC,
3/26/00, p.A25)(SFEC, 11/12/00, BR p.1)(SSFC, 2/17/13, p.F5)(Econ,
3/9/13, p.84)

1964 Feb 11, Sarah Palin, later
governor of Alaska, was born in Sandpoint, Idaho. After 3 months her
family moved to Alaska. In 2008 Sen. John McCain named her as his
vice-presidential running mate.
(SFC, 8/30/08, p.A6)
1964 Feb 11, The Beatles 1st
live appearance in US was in the Washington, DC Coliseum. It
was filmed by CBS.
(SFC, 3/6/04, p.D17)
1964 Feb 11, Cambodian Prince
Sihanouk blamed the U.S. for a South Vietnamese air raid on a
village in his country.
(HN, 2/11/97)

1965 Feb 11, Pres. Lyndon
Johnson ordered air strikes against targets in North Vietnam, in
retaliation for guerrilla attacks on the American military in South
Vietnam. The American "Rolling Thunder" bombing campaign
intensified. In 2006 Rick Newman and Don Shepperd authored “Bury Us
Upside Down: The Misty Pilots and the Secret Battle for the Ho Chi
Minh Trail," an account of the pilots who flew low scouting for
targets that threatened US bombers.
(HN, 2/11/02)(WSJ, 3/2/06, p.D8)

1970 Feb 11, Japan launched its
first satellite, Ohsumi-1. That launch made Japan the fourth nation
with a space rocket powerful enough to launch satellites to Earth
orbit, after the USSR, the US and France.
(www.spacetoday.org/Japan/Japan/History.html)

1972 Feb 11, McGraw-Hill
Publishing Co. and Life magazine canceled plans to publish what
turned out to be a fake autobiography of reclusive billionaire
Howard Hughes.
(AP, 2/11/97)

1974 Feb 11, Communist-led
rebels showered artillery fire into a crowded area of Phnom Penh,
killing 139 and injuring 46 others. As the war in Vietnam wound down
with the signing of the 1973 Paris Peace Accords, the war in
neighboring Cambodia was going from bad to worse.
(HN, 2/11/97)

1975 Feb 11, Margaret Thatcher
was elected leader of the Tory Party, the first woman to lead the
British Conservative Party. in England. She later became Prime
Minister and held office from 1979-1990. Her second volume of
memoirs is titled The Path to Power, (Harper-Collins, 1995) and
documents her rise to power.
(WSJ, 7/6/95, p. A-7)(HN, 2/11/99)

1977 Feb 11, A 20.2-kg lobster
was caught off Nova Scotia. This was the heaviest known crustacean
to date.
(www.canadiangold.ns.ca/funfacts.asp)

1979 Feb 11, In NYC "They're
Playing Our Song" opened at the Imperial Theater and played for 1082
performances.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/They're_Playing_Our_Song)
1979 Feb 11, Followers of
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini seized power in Iran, nine days after
the religious leader returned to his home country following 15 years
of exile. Premier Bakhtiar resigned.
(AP, 2/11/97)

1986 Feb 11, Activist Anatoly
Scharansky was released by USSR, and left the country after nine
years of captivity as part of an East-West prisoner exchange.
(AP, 2/11/04)
1986 Feb 11, Frank Patrick
Herbert (b.1920), sci-fi author (Dune, 1965), died of cancer in
Wisconsin.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Herbert)

1987 Feb 11, Peggy Hettrick
(37) in Fort Collins, Colorado, was murdered. Timothy Masters (15)
was convicted and sentenced to life in 1999 for the crime. He served
nine and a half years of a life sentence for the murder until DNA
evidence from the body in 2008 was found to match the victim's
ex-boyfriend and not the Masters.
(Reuters, 1/22/08)

1988 Feb 11, President Reagan's
onetime political director, Lyn Nofziger, was convicted of illegally
lobbying top White House aides. However, the U.S. Circuit Court of
Appeals later overturned Nofziger's conviction, and the Supreme
Court refused to reinstate it.
(AP, 2/11/97)
1988 Feb 11, Iran launched a
campaign to retake the Fao Peninsula from Iraq with US planning
assistance. Chemical weapons were used in the attack.
(SSFC, 8/18/02,
p.A12)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Faw_Peninsula)

1989 Feb 11, Reverend Barbara
C. Harris became the first woman consecrated as a bishop in the
Episcopal Church, in a ceremony held in Boston.
(AP, 2/11/99)

1990 Feb 11, In a stunning
upset, heavyweight champion Mike Tyson was knocked out in the 10th
round of his fight with Buster Douglas in Tokyo.
(AP, 2/11/00)
1990 Feb 11, Nelson Mandela was
released from South Africa’s Victor Verster prison after being
detained for 27 years as a political prisoner fighting against
Apartheid.
(AP, 2/11/97)(SFC, 12/6/13, p.A19)

1991 Feb 11, President Bush met
with Defense Secretary Dick Cheney and Joint Chiefs Chairman Colin
L. Powell, who had just returned from the Gulf region. Afterward,
Bush said he would hold off on a ground war against Iraq for the
time being, saying allied air strikes had been “very, very
effective."
(AP, 2/11/01)
1991 Feb 11, The parliament of
Iceland confirmed that the recognition of Lithuania from 1922 was
fully valid and that diplomatic relations would be established as
soon as possible. Lithuania received de jure recognition from
Iceland.
(DrEE, 1/4/97, p.4)(LHC, 2/11/03)
1991 Feb 11, Oscar Nitzchke
(90), German architect, died in Paris. His buildings included the UN
headquarters in New York, the Los Angeles Opera House.
(http://tinyurl.com/7kx39)

1992 Feb 11, US Secretary of
State James A. Baker III, on a tour of six former Soviet republics,
visited Armenia, where he heard an appeal from the republic's
president for U.S. help in resolving a bloody feud with neighboring
Azerbaijan.
(AP, 2/11/02)

1993 Feb 11, President Clinton
announced his choice of Miami prosecutor Janet Reno to be the
nation's first female attorney general, after two earlier candidates
stumbled because they'd hired illegal aliens.
(AP, 2/11/97)
1993 Feb 11, In Afghanistan
some 800 Hazzara civilians were massacred in the Afshar district of
West Kabul.
(Econ, 2/17/07, p.45)(http://tinyurl.com/34h7bu)

1996 Feb 11, A day after losing
to an IBM computer dubbed “Deep Blue," world chess champion Garry
Kasparov rebounded to defeat the machine and even their six-game
series in Philadelphia at one victory apiece.
(AP, 2/11/01)
1996 Feb 11, Tamil politicians
in Sri Lanka charged that government troops killed 24 civilians in
the eastern district of Trincomalee.
(WSJ, 2/12/96, p.A-13)

1997 Feb 11, In a display of
bipartisan unity, President Clinton and congressional leaders agreed
to focus the new Congress on balancing the budget and other issues
ranging from cutting taxes to solving the capital city's myriad
problems.
(AP, 2/11/97)
1997 Feb 11, Space shuttle
Discovery was launched on a mission to service the Hubble Space
Telescope.
(AP, 2/11/97)
1997 Feb 11, Bosnian Croats
evicted 26 Muslim families from the Croat half of the city of
Mostar.
(WSJ, 2/12/97, p.A1)

1998 Feb 11, Attorney General
Janet Reno asked for an independent prosecutor to investigate
whether Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt had misled Congress in
connection with an Indian casino controversy; The counsel, Carol
Elder Bruce, found no wrongdoing on Babbitt's part.
(AP, 2/11/03)
1998 Feb 11, KVBC-FM (Las
Vegas) offered Monica Lewinsky $5M for an interview.
(MC, 2/11/02)
1998 Feb 11, Skier Jonny
Moseley won the first U.S. gold medal at Nagano, in men's moguls
freestyle; Picabo Street won the women's super-G. Canadian
snowboarder Ross Rebagliati was stripped of his gold medal after
testing positive for marijuana. His medal was later reinstated.
(AP, 2/11/99)
1998 Feb 11, Ben Cohen,
co-founder of Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream, was named as director of
the Greenpeace environmental group. Greenpeace had an annual
worldwide income of about $160 mil.
(SFEC, 2/15/98, p.A7)
1998 Feb 11, In Montenegro
former Pres. Momir Bulatovic was indicted with 3 senior aides for
activity against the state during the January riots.
(SFC, 2/13/98, p.D5)
1998 Feb 11, Russia’s Pres.
Yeltsin completed a 3 day visit to Italy and scored $5 billion in
trade and investment contracts.
(SFC, 2/12/98, p.A14)

1999 Feb 11, US jets struck 7
Iraqi air defense sites.
(SFC, 2/12/99, p.A14)
1999 Feb 11, A federal jury in
New York found several gun makers responsible in three area
shootings for letting guns fall into the hands of criminals; other
manufacturers were cleared. Several gun manufacturers were found
negligent for marketing and distribution practices but awarded
limited damages. The plaintiffs suffered a setback in 2001 when the
New York Court of Appeals invalidated such claims.
(SFC, 2/12/99, p.A3)(AP, 2/11/04)
1999 Feb 11, On the Oregon
coast the New Carissa cargo ship was set on fire with explosives to
burn off some 400,000 gallons of fuel oil to prevent its spillage.
(SFC, 2/12/99, p.A5)
1999 Feb 11, Jaki Byard (76),
jazz pianist, saxophonist and teacher, was shot dead in his home in
Queens.
(SFC, 2/16/99, p.A18)
1999 Feb 11, In Bangladesh
opposition parties called general strikes and 5 people were killed.
(SFEC, 3/7/99, p.T14)
1999 Feb 11, In India a private
army of upper-caste landlords shot and killed 12 low-caste villagers
in Bihar.
(SFC, 2/12/99, p.A18)
1999 Feb 11, In Iran Pres.
Khatami marked the 20th anniversary of the revolution that toppled
the shah and called for reduction of tensions with the outside
world.
(SFC, 2/12/99, p.A17)
1999 Feb 11, In Italy angry
female lawmakers wore jeans to protest an appeals court ruling that
said rape is impossible if the victim is wearing jeans.
(SFC, 2/12/99, p.A1)
1999 Feb 11, In Paraguay the
Congress voted to begin impeachment proceedings against Pres. Raul
Cubas for freeing Lino Oviedo.
(SFC, 2/12/99, p.A18)

2000 Feb 11, In Minnesota Gov.
Jesse Ventura cut his ties to the Reform Party. In Nashville the
national chairman, Jack Gargan, was ousted by forces loyal to Ross
Perot and Pat Buchanan.
(SFC, 2/12/00, p.A3)(SFEC, 2/13/00,
p.A3)
2000 Feb 11, The space shuttle
Endeavour lifted into orbit with a crew of six under commander Kevin
Kregel and a mission to map the Earth.
(SFC, 2/12/00, p.A4)(AP, 2/11/01)
2000 Feb 11, An early morning
bomb exploded in NYC on the corner of Wall and Water streets in
front of an office building owned by Barclay's Bank. One person was
slightly injured.
(SFC, 2/12/00, p.A2)
2000 Feb 11, Britain suspended
the 10-week old power-sharing government of Northern Ireland. An
independent panel reported progress on the question of disarmament
by the IRA.
(SFC, 2/12/00, p.A1)(AP, 2/11/01)
2000 Feb 11, In France Roger
Vadim, film director, died at age 72. His 5 wives included Brigitte
Bardot, Annette Stroyberg, Catherine Deneuve, Jane Fonda, Catherine
Schneider and Marie-Christine Barrault.
(SFC, 2/12/00, p.A21)(AP, 2/11/01)
2000 Feb 11, In Lebanon
Hezbollah launched another rocket attack that killed an Israeli
soldier. Israel responded with warplanes and attacks in southern
Lebanon and the eastern Bekaa Valley to which Hezbollah responded
with fresh hits. Israel cancelled an urgent -US-led meeting called
to diffuse the widening war.
(SFC, 2/12/00, p.A11)
2000 Feb 11, In South Africa it
was reported that at least 19 people had died and 12 were feared
drowned after torrential rains hit the northern province of
Mpumalanga.
(SFC, 2/12/00, p.A9)

2001 Feb 11, The East NBA
All-Stars defeated the West squad, 111-to-110.
(AP, 2/11/02)
2001 Feb 11, Ann Bancroft and
Liv Arnesen became the 1st women to cross the Antarctic land mass on
skis.
(SFC, 2/13/01, p.D3)
2001 Feb 11, Three Rivers
Stadium in Pittsburgh was demolished to clear the way for new
separate baseball and football stadiums nearby.
(AP, 2/11/02)
2001 Feb 11, It was reported
that scientists had found the human genome to consist of 30,000
genes and that only some 300 were unique to humans as when compared
to mice.
(SSFC, 2/11/01, p.A1)
2001 Feb 11, Two space
commanders opened the door to Destiny, the American-made science
laboratory attached the day before to the international space
station.
(AP, 2/11/02)
2001 Feb 11, Gao Zhan, a
US-based scholar, was detained at Beijing airport by Chinese
authorities. She was formally charged as a spy on April 3. [see Mar
27]
(WSJ, 3/28/01, p.A1)(SFC, 4/4/01, p.D14)
2001 Feb 11, In Colombia 9
young hikers, 6 men and 3 women, were found killed execution style
in southwest Purace National Park. FARC later admitted to killing
the 8 hikers.
(SFC, 2/15/01, p.A12)(WSJ, 3/19/01, p.A1)
2001 Feb 11, In Croatia some
100,000 protested the investigation of former general Mirko Norac
for war crimes in 1991.
(SFC, 2/12/01, p.B2)
2001 Feb 11, In El Salvador
armed men attacked a bus carrying a local soccer team near
Zacatecoluca. The coach was killed and 3 others injured.
(SFC, 2/13/01, p.D3)
2001 Feb 11, In Thailand troops
fought a gun battle with some 200 Burmese soldiers who crossed the
border chasing Shan rebels.
(SFC, 2/12/01, p.B2)
2001 Feb 11, In Ukraine some
5-10 thousand protesters called for the resignation of Pres. Kuchma.
Kuchma fired 2 top security officials amid the growing scandal of a
journalist killed while investigating graft.
(SFC, 2/12/01, p.B1)(WSJ, 2/12/01, p.A1)

2002 Feb 11, Americans Ross
Powers, Danny Kass and J.J. Thomas took gold, silver and bronze in
the men's halfpipe at the Salt Lake City Olympics. Gold medals for
the Olympics free-style skating event went to Russians Anton
Sikharulidze and Elena Berezhnaya. French judge Marie-Reine Le
Gougne later admitted to being pressured to support the Russian
team. On Feb 15 Olympic officials awarded a 2nd gold medal to
Canadians David Pelletier and Jamie Sale for their performance.
(SFC, 2/16/02, p.A1)(AP, 2/11/03)
2002 Feb 11, The FBI issued a
warning for a possible terrorist assault and identified Fawaz Yahya
al-Rabeei, a Yemeni national, as a possible attacker.
(SFC, 2/12/02, p.A1)
2002 Feb 11, SF sued PG&E
for a $5 billion refund to ratepayers.
(SFC, 2/12/02, p.B1)
2002 Feb 11, In Afghanistan
opium vendors shut down in Kandahar under US military orders.
(SFC, 2/12/02, p.A14)
2002 Feb 11, The Argentine peso
was put to float for the 1st time in a decade and dropped about 5%
to 2.1 pesos to the dollar.
(SFC, 2/12/02, p.A10)
2002 Feb 11, In Colombia
suspected FARC rebels sent 2 bombs into a southern army garrison and
killed 10 sleeping soldiers.
(SFC, 2/12/02, p.A10)
2002 Feb 11, In Indonesia
warring Christians and Muslims from Maluku province began 2 days of
peace talks.
(SFC, 2/12/02, p.A10)
2002 Feb 11, Israel bombed the
Palestinian security headquarters in the Gaza Strip for a 2nd day in
response to the use of a Kassam-2 rocket by Hamas.
(SFC, 2/12/02, p.A8)(AP, 2/11/03)
2002 Feb 11, In Jordan Raed
Hijazi (33) was convicted and sentenced to be hung for plotting to
blow up tourist sites during millennium celebrations. [see Dec 2000]
(SFC, 2/12/02, p.A12)

2003 Feb 11, Federal Reserve
Chairman Alan Greenspan said that Pres. Bush's tax cut would
increase the federal budget deficits and voiced opposition.
(SFC, 2/12/03, p.A1)
2003 Feb 11, Addressing a
historic rift within NATO, Secretary of State Colin Powell told a
congressional hearing the future of the military alliance was at
risk if it failed to confront the crisis with Iraq.
(AP, 2/11/04)
2003 Feb 11, The purported
voice of Osama bin Laden, broadcast over the Al Jazeera network,
told his followers to help Saddam Hussein fight Americans.
(AP, 2/12/03)
2003 Feb 11, A group of around
50 Western anti-war activists received visas to enter Iraq where
they plan to form "human shields." Iraq said it would allow U-2
surveillance flights.
(Reuters, 2/11/03)(SFC, 2/11/03, p.A10)
2003 Feb 11, Afghan officials
said 17 civilians were killed in American-led bombing over the last
2 days.
(SFC, 2/12/03, p.A8)
2003 Feb 11, From China it was
reported that an unidentified illness, 1st noted in Nov., has killed
at least five people in Guangdong province, left hundreds
hospitalized and sent health officials scrambling to find its
source.
(AP, 2/11/03)
2003 Feb 11, In China Ma Sanli
(b.1914), a master performer of the traditional Chinese art of
crosstalk, a rhythmic, often humorous mix of dialogue and
storytelling, died.
(AP, 2/11/03)
2003 Feb 11, The private plane
carrying Colombian Minister of Social Welfare, Juan Luis Londono,
was found crashed in the mountains north of the town of Cajamarca,
85 miles west of Bogota. It had disappeared 5 days earlier.
(AP, 2/11/03)
2003 Feb 11, Israeli troops
killed an armed Palestinian in the Gaza Strip, and Israel imposed a
blanket closure on the Palestinian areas during the Muslim Hajj
because of warnings of possible attacks. Israeli soldiers killed an
8-year-old boy in the West Bank and an Israeli was killed by a
Palestinian gunman in Bethlehem.
(AP, 2/11/03)(SFC, 2/12/03, p.A13)
2003 Feb 11, In Paraguay Pres.
Luis Gonzalez Macchi survived an impeachment trial as the Senate
failed to muster enough votes to strip him from power over
corruption charges.
(AP, 2/12/03)
2003 Feb 11, In Mina, Saudi
Arabia, 14 Muslim pilgrims were trampled to death when some
worshippers tripped amid a jostling crowd during the devil-stoning
ritual of the annual Hajj pilgrimage.
(AP, 2/11/03)(SFC, 2/12/03, p.A9)

2004 Feb 11, Wesley Clark
dropped out of the race for the White House.
(AP, 2/11/05)
2004 Feb 11, It was reported
that Mattel planned to introduce a line of toys capable of receiving
digital signals from a new Batman TV cartoon show scheduled for the
Fall.
(WSJ, 2/11/04, p.A1)
2004 Feb 11, Cable TV giant
Comcast Corp. launched a hostile bid to buy The Walt Disney Co. for
more than $54 billion. Comcast later dropped its bid.
(WSJ, 2/12/04, p.A1)(AP, 2/11/05)
2004 Feb 11, In eastern
Afghanistan a suicide attacker fatally shot a senior intelligence
official in Khost, then blew himself up as guards tried to arrest
him.
(AP, 2/11/04)(WSJ, 2/12/04, p.A1)
2004 Feb 11, In Bolivia 2
inmates were voluntarily nailed to crosses by their fellow prisoners
as part of a protest for better conditions and shorter sentences
that was broadcast on TV.
(AP, 2/11/04)
2004 Feb 11, A gas explosion in
a coal mine in southern China killed 24 miners.
(AP, 2/11/04)
2004 Feb 11, Jozef Lenart (80),
a former Czechoslovak prime minister cleared of treason charges for
his alleged role in the 1968 Soviet-led invasion that crushed the
country's democratic movement, died. He served as prime minister of
Czechoslovakia from 1963-1968 and headed the Slovak Communist Party
until 1988. A Slovak national he acquired Czech citizenship after
Czechoslovakia split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia in 1993.
(AP, 2/12/04)
2004 Feb 11, In Haiti
pro-Aristide supporters killed up to 50 residents of St. Marc.
(Econ, 5/14/05,
p.42)(www.haitipolicy.org/content/2969.htm)
2004 Feb 11, In Iraq a suicide
attacker blew up a car packed with explosives in a crowd of hundreds
of Iraqis waiting outside a Baghdad army recruiting center, killing
47 people in the second bombing in two days.
(AP, 2/11/05)
2004 Feb 11, Israeli troops
rode tanks into the Gaza Strip searching for Islamic militants
firing rockets at nearby Jewish settlements, and the ensuing battle
left at least 15 Palestinians dead and more than 50 wounded.
(AP, 2/11/04)(SFC, 2/12/04, p.A8)
2004 Feb 11, The bodies of 2
Americans, Francisco A. Antonielli (33) and James F. Bowtte (43),
were discovered in a parking garage at the airport in Tijuana,
Mexico, the apparent victims of a drug-related gunbattle.
(AP, 2/11/04)
2004 Feb 11, Philippine troops
rescued Alastair Joseph Onglingswan (35), a kidnapped American
businessman, who was chained by his neck and feet for 22 days by a
lone abductor.
(AP, 2/11/04)
2004 Feb 11, In Puerto Rico 4
people were killed in separate shootings over the last 24 hours,
pushing the number of deaths past the 100 mark for this year. There
were 780 killings in 2003, compared with 781 in 2002. Police say
most of the violence on the island of 4 million people is
drug-related.
(AP, 2/11/04)
2004 Feb 11, South Korean
scientists reported that they had cloned human embryonic tissue
cells.
(SFC, 2/12/04, p.A1)
2004 Feb 11, Sri Lanka's
president fired 39 ministers and deputy ministers from the caretaker
government headed by her rival.
(AP, 2/11/04)
2004 Feb 11, Sudan
government-backed militias reportedly attacked five villages in
southern Darfur region, killing between 68 and 80 civilians.
"Amnesty International continued to receive details of horrifying
attacks against civilians in villages by government warplanes,
soldiers and government-aligned militia."
(AP, 2/18/04)

2005 Feb 11, Defense Secretary
Donald H. Rumsfeld made an unannounced visit to Iraq, where he
observed Iraqi security forces and declared "there's no question
progress has been made" in preparing the nation for building a new
government.
(AP, 2/11/06)
2005 Feb 11, The US State
Department said Libyan diplomats can travel freely in the US.
(AP, 2/11/05)
2005 Feb 11, Health officials
in NYC issued a nationwide alert over a new AIDS HIV strain that is
immune to just about all antiretroviral drugs.
(SFC, 2/12/05, p.A1)
2005 Feb 11, CNN chief news
executive Eason Jordan quit amid a furor over remarks he'd made
about journalists being targeted by the U.S. military in Iraq.
(AP, 2/11/06)
2005 Feb 11, Samuel W. Alderson
(90), inventor of crash test dummies, died in Marina Del Rey, Calif.
(AP, 2/11/06)
2005 Feb 11, In Afghanistan US
troops killed two unarmed men after they entered an exclusion zone
around near Shindand Air Base in Herat province. An investigation
followed.
(AP, 2/19/05)
2005 Feb 11, A political
consulting firm posted the names of 19 agents and informants of
Hungary's communist secret police on a Web site, and it threatened
to list more.
(AP, 2/11/05)
2005 Feb 11, A car bomb
exploded outside a Shiite mosque northeast of Baghdad, killing at
least 12 people and injuring dozens. Masked men sprayed gunfire into
a crowd at a bakery in a mostly Shiite neighborhood in the capital,
killing 11 people. A US Marine and an Army soldier were killed in
separate traffic accidents.
(AP, 2/11/05)(AP, 2/12/05)
2005 Feb 11, Kashmir police
said 10 people died, including a pro-India party worker slain by
Muslim rebels, a day ahead of the next round of violence-hit
municipal polls.
(AP, 2/11/05)
2005 Feb 11, North Korea
demanded bilateral talks with the US to defuse the tension created
by its announcement that it is a nuclear power. The White House said
it was not interested in one-on-one talks.
(AP, 2/11/05)
2005 Feb 11, A day after firing
his top security commanders, Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas headed
to the Gaza Strip to demand that militant leaders stop attacking
Israelis, a strong sign of his determination to enforce a fragile
truce with Israel.
(AP, 2/11/05)
2005 Feb 11, In South Africa
Thabo Mbeki gave his state of the nation speech. He called for
faster economic growth and a quicker transfer of wealth from white
to black pockets.
(Econ, 2/19/05,
p.45)(www.info.gov.za/speeches/son/)
2005 Feb 11, Venezuela's vice
president said US objections will not prevent Venezuela from going
ahead with its plans to purchase 100,000 Kalashnikov assault rifles
and dozens of Mi35 helicopters from Russia.
(AP, 2/11/05)(Econ, 2/26/05, p.35)
2005 Feb 11, Zimbabwe announced
that 1.5 million people needed food aid immediately.
(SFC, 2/12/05, p.A3)

2006 Feb 11, Vice President
Dick Cheney accidentally shot Harry Whittington (78), a hunting
companion, during a weekend quail hunting trip at the 50,000-acre
Armstrong ranch in Texas. Whittington, peppered with bird shot, was
in stable condition.
(AP, 2/13/06)
2006 Feb 11, Dubai Ports World,
a state-owned business in the United Arab Emirates, won approval
from a secretive US panel for a $6.8 billion deal to take over
operations at six American ports.
(AP, 2/11/07)
2006 Feb 11, Adventurer Steve
Fossett completed the longest nonstop flight in aviation history,
flying 26,389 miles in about 76 hours, but he had to land early in
southern England because of mechanical problems.
(AP, 2/11/06)
2006 Feb 11, It was reported
that the town of Hull was one of many in central Iowa whose
groundwater has been contaminated by farm chemicals. It pinned hopes
for its future water supply on the new Lewis and Clark Rural Water
System, due to open in 2018. The system planned to pump Missouri
River water across South Dakota, Minnesota and Iowa.
(Econ, 2/11/06, p.33)
2006 Feb 11, Peter Benchley
(65), "Jaws" author, died in Princeton, N.J.
(AP, 2/11/07)
2006 Feb 11, The presidents of
Armenia and Azerbaijan failed to reach agreement after two days of
talks on how to end the bloody conflict over the enclave of
Nagorno-Karabakh.
(AP, 2/11/06)
2006 Feb 11, Nova Scotia's
Conservative party chose Cape Bretoner Rodney MacDonald, a
professional fiddler and former gym teacher, as their leader and the
province's new premier following a dramatic convention in Halifax.
(CP, 2/11/06)
2006 Feb 11, Denmark said it
has temporarily withdrawn its ambassadors from Syria, Iran and
Indonesia because their safety was at risk in the wake of a Danish
newspaper's publication of drawings of the Prophet Muhammad.
(AP, 2/11/06)
2006 Feb 11, An Egyptian
diplomat abducted at gunpoint in the Gaza Strip was released.
(AP, 2/11/06)
2006 Feb 11, In Indian Kashmir
8 people, including three security personnel, were killed in
separate overnight clashes and rebel attacks. An Islamic separatist
women's group, known for its fierce opposition to Western-style
romance, vowed to prevent couples celebrating Valentine's Day.
(AFP, 2/11/06)
2006 Feb 11, Iran's president
rejected US and European pressure to freeze the country's nuclear
program and hinted that Iran may withdraw from the Nuclear
Nonproliferation Treaty.
(AP, 2/11/06)
2006 Feb 11, An Iraqi army
spokesman was assassinated in Basra.
(AP, 2/11/06)
2006 Feb 11, Italy dissolved
its parliament and scheduled elections for early April, opening a
campaign that pits Premier Silvio Berlusconi against a strong
center-left opponent.
(AP, 2/11/06)
2006 Feb 11, American Chad
Hedrick won the 5,000 meters in speedskating at the Olympics in
Turin, Italy.
(AP, 2/11/07)
2006 Feb 11, Altynbek
Sarsenbayev (43), a Kazakh former minister and leading member of the
political opposition, was abducted in Almaty. He was found shot dead
2 days later along with his bodyguard and driver later near Almaty.
Sarsenbaev held a senior position in Alban, a subdivision of the
Elder Horde, one of Kazakhstan’s 3 great traditional tribal
groupings. Relatives and supporters of Sarsenbayev accused
authorities of covering up for those behind the high-profile killing
as 10 defendants faced trial on June 15.
(AP, 2/13/06)(Econ, 2/18/06, p.44)(AP, 6/14/06)
2006 Feb 11, In Pakistan tribal
insurgents killed three soldiers and injured 10 others in two
attacks on paramilitary forces in southwestern Baluchistan province.
(AP, 2/11/06)
2006 Feb 11, Suspected US
military fire struck the tent of a nomad family on the Pakistan side
of the rugged border with Afghanistan, killing two women and
injuring at least four children.
(AP, 2/13/06)
2006 Feb 11, In Moscow G-8
finance ministers called for stepped up efforts to ensure a stable
worldwide energy supply.
(SSFC, 2/12/06, p.A23)
2006 Feb 11, In Sri Lanka a
suspected separatist rebel boat carrying explosives blew up,
apparently killing at least four men on board.
(AP, 2/12/06)
2006 Feb 11, In southern Sudan
a military transport plane blew a tire while landing at Aweil,
swerved off the runway and exploded, killing all 20 people on board.
(AP, 2/12/06)
2006 Feb 11, Thailand's PM
Shinawatra, facing growing calls for his resignation, agreed to hold
a national referendum on amending the country's constitution.
(AP, 2/11/06)
2006 Feb 11-2006 Feb 15, The
Pacific archipelago of Tokelau, population ~1,500, voted in a
referendum (349-232) to remain as a territory of New Zealand rather
than becoming a self-governing state in free association with New
Zealand.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokelau_self-determination_referendum,_2006)
2006 Feb 11, In Tunis US
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and leaders of Tunisia pledged
to build closer military ties to help combat Islamic extremism.
(AP, 2/11/06)
2006 Feb 11, It was reported
that drought in northern Vietnam threatened 740,000 acres of rice as
the level of the Red River continued to fall to its lowest level in
over 100 years.
(SFC, 6/4/04, A1)

2007 Feb 11, The Dixie Chicks
won five Grammys in a defiant comeback after being shunned over
their anti-President Bush comments about the Iraq war.
(AP, 2/11/08)
2007 Feb 11, Harvard Univ.
appointed Drew Gilpin Faust as its 28th and first female president.
(SFC, 2/12/07, p.A5)
2007 Feb 11, Intel introduced a
new super-processor at the opening of an int’l conference of chip
scientists. The processor would be able to perform over 1 trillion
mathematical calculations per second (teraflop), but commercial use
would not be available for 5 years.
(SFC, 2/12/07, p.A9)
2007 Feb 11, Scientists
reported in the journal Nature that they had successfully prevented
cleft palates in embryonic mice using a technique called chemical
genetics.
(SFC, 2/12/07, p.A3)
2007 Feb 11, Helmand’s
provincial governor said an estimated 700 foreign fighters are
operating in a southern Afghan province where Taliban fighters
overran a town earlier this month. Asserting a right to self-defense
the commander of US forces in the region said American forces in
eastern Afghanistan have launched artillery rounds into Pakistan to
strike Taliban fighters who attack remote US outposts. A US service
member died of a gunshot wound in northern Afghanistan.
(AP, 2/11/07)
2007 Feb 11, Muhammad Yunus,
Bangladesh's "banker to the poor" and Nobel Peace Prize winner,
formally announced his willingness to form a new political party to
take part in forthcoming elections. In May Yunus reversed his
decision to enter politics.
(AFP, 2/11/07)(Econ, 5/12/07, p.46)
2007 Feb 11, In Egypt Osama
Hassan Mustafa Nasr, known as Abu Omar, was released. The Egyptian
Muslim preacher had been allegedly kidnapped by CIA agents off the
streets of Milan, Italy, on Feb 17, 2003, and taken to Egypt. It was
reported that since the end of December seven women have been
stabbed by a dark-skinned man in his 20s in Cairo’s Maadi suburb,
whose richer areas are home to numerous embassies and many
foreigners.
(AP, 2/12/07)(AFP, 2/12/07)
2007 Feb 11, In France
socialist presidential candidate Segolene Royal unveiled a
long-awaited platform that promised to boost the minimum wage and
pension payments.
(AP, 2/11/07)
2007 Feb 11, Iranian President
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, marking the 28th anniversary of the Islamic
Revolution, vowed his country would not give up uranium enrichment.
(AP, 2/11/08)
2007 Feb 11, A suicide truck
bomber slammed into a crowd of police lining up for duty near
Tikrit, collapsing the station and killing at least 30 people and
wounding 50. 21 of the 30 killed were policemen. Minutes later, a
roadside bomb struck a car on a highway on the western outskirts of
Tikrit killing two civilians and wounding two others. A suicide
bomber blew himself up next to a police patrol in the religiously
mixed neighborhood of Ilam in southwestern Baghdad, killing one
policeman. A parked car bomb exploded near an intersection, killing
two people and wounding three in Mansour. A US soldier was killed
after coming under small-arms fire northeast of Baghdad. A senior US
intelligence officer said high-tech roadside bombs, that have proved
particularly deadly to American soldiers, are manufactured in Iran
and delivered to Iraq on orders from the "highest levels" of the
Iranian government. Another US soldier was killed in fighting in
Anbar province.
(AP, 2/11/07)(AP, 2/13/07)
2007 Feb 11, Israel
successfully conducted its first nighttime test of the Arrow
anti-missile system after sundown.
(AP, 2/11/07)
2007 Feb 11, Indian Kashmir was
hit by clashes between police and protesters as separatists held a
general strike marking the anniversary of the execution of a
prominent rebel.
(AP, 2/11/07)
2007 Feb 11, In Kosovo 2
protesters injured the previous day in violent clashes with police
died of their wounds.
(AP, 2/11/07)
2007 Feb 11, Portugal held a
national referendum on whether to discard its strict abortion law, a
battle that pits the Socialist government against conservative
parties and the Catholic Church. Almost 60% of voters approved the
referendum allowing women to opt for abortions up to the 10th week
of pregnancy, however the turnout was only 44%.
(AP, 2/11/07)(AP, 2/12/07)
2007 Feb 11, President Vladimir
Putin, making the first visit by a Russian leader to Saudi Arabia,
met King Abdullah and other senior officials for talks that touched
on regional tensions including Iraq and the Palestinian territories.
(AP, 2/11/07)
2007 Feb 11, A Syrian court
sentenced Mohammed Haydar Zammar, a man believed to have known the
Sept. 11 hijackers, to 12 years in prison for membership in the
banned Muslim Brotherhood organization.
(AP, 2/11/07)
2007 Feb 11, Voters cast
ballots as Turkmenistan, ruled for more than two decades by an
eccentric autocrat, held its first presidential election with more
than one candidate, but still only one party.
(AP, 2/11/07)
2007 Feb 11, In Venezuela
officials said President Hugo Chavez's government has drafted a
decree allowing officials to take control of food distribution
chains, including supermarkets and storage depots, if services are
interrupted.
(AP, 2/11/07)

2008 Feb 11, A US defense
official, an ex-Boeing engineer and two others were charged in 2
separate spy cases with spying for China involving sensitive
military and aerospace secrets, including on the space shuttle.
Dongfan Chung, a longtime aerospace worker in Southern California,
was indicted for allegedly passing classified documents to China in
an elaborate espionage endeavor that spanned two decades and exposed
trade secrets from the space shuttle, the Delta IV rocket and the
C-17 military transport aircraft. In 2010 Chung was sentenced to
over 15 years in prison.
(http://articles.latimes.com/2008/feb/12/nation/na-espionage12)(SFC,
2/12/08, p.A3)(SFC, 2/9/10, p.A4)
2008 Feb 11, William Lerach
(61), a former partner at a well-known New York law firm, was
sentenced to two years in federal prison for his role in a lucrative
kickback scheme involving class-action lawsuits against some of the
nation's biggest corporations. Authorities said Lerach's former
firm, now known as Milberg Weiss, made an estimated $250 million
over two decades by filing legal actions on behalf of professional
plaintiffs who received kickbacks.
(AP, 2/11/08)
2008 Feb 11, It was reported
that Patricia Cornwell (51), crime novelist, was donating $1 million
to NYC’s John Jay College of Criminal Justice to help start a Crime
Scene Academy.
(WSJ, 2/11/08, p.B7)
2008 Feb 11, It was reported
that Ronald Fearing, Berkeley professor in electrical engineering,
has invented a tape-like substance based on the physics used by
geckos to scoot upside-down across ceilings.
(SFC, 2/11/08, p.C1)
2008 Feb 11, Dow Jones added
Chevron and Bank of America to its DJIA index in place of Altria
Group and Honeywell Int’l.
(SFC, 2/12/08, p.C1)
2008 Feb 11, Rep. Tom Lantos
(80) of California, the only Holocaust survivor to serve in
Congress, died.
(AP, 2/11/08)
2008 Feb 11, Frank Piasecki
(b.1919), helicopter pioneer and test pilot, died. In 1940 he
co-founded P-V Engineering Forum (1940) with Howard Venzie. In 1960
Piasecki Helicopter Corp. merged with Boeing Airplane Co.
(WSJ, 2/16/08, p.A6)
2008 Feb 11, President Evo
Morales declared a US Embassy security officer to be an "undesirable
person" after reports that the officer asked an American scholar and
30 Peace Corps volunteers to pass along information about Cubans and
Venezuelans working in Bolivia.
(AP, 2/11/08)
2008 Feb 11, In London the
price of platinum struck an historic high nearing $1,900 on supply
disruptions caused by power shortages in South Africa, the white
metal's biggest producer.
(AP, 2/11/08)
2008 Feb 11, Chad's PM Nouradin
Koumakoye demanded that the international community remove refugees
who have fled to Chad from Sudan's Darfur region.
(AP, 2/11/08)
2008 Feb 11, A Cairo appeals
court acquitted Howayda Taha, an Al-Jazeera journalist sentenced to
six months over a film that highlighted torture in Egyptian police
stations, but it still upheld a fine against her.
(AFP, 2/11/08)
2008 Feb 11, Rebel soldiers
shot and critically wounded East Timor's Pres. Jose Ramos-Horta, and
opened fire on PM Xanana Gusmao, in a failed coup attempt in the
recently independent nation. Rebel leader Alfredo Reinado and one of
his men were killed in the attack on the home of Ramos-Horta, while
one of the president's guards also died. In 2010 Angelita Pires
(43), an Australian woman, was cleared of the attempted
assassination. Prosecutors had stated that she had persuaded her
lover, rebel leader Alfredo Reinado, to mount the attack. 23 others
were sentenced to jail terms ranging from nine to 16 years. 4 others
were acquitted.
(AP, 2/11/08)(AP, 3/3/10)
2008 Feb 11, Twin car bombs
struck near the compound of Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, one of Iraq's most
powerful Shiite politicians, killing at least six civilians and
wounding 20.
(AP, 2/11/08)
2008 Feb 11, In Japan US Staff
Sergeant Tyrone Luther Hadnott was arrested after a 14-year-old girl
said he raped her in his car. Hadnott was released Feb 29 after the
girl withdrew her criminal complaint against him. He still faced a
US military investigation. On May 16 Hadnott (38) was found guilty
of abusive sexual conduct and sentenced to four years in prison.
(AFP, 2/12/08)(AP, 3/1/08)(AP, 5/16/08)
2008 Feb 11, Gunmen killed a
Nigerian naval officer and forced several others to dive for their
lives into the water in oil-rich southern Rivers State.
(AFP, 2/11/08)
2008 Feb 11, Pakistani security
forces critically wounded Mansoor Dadullah, a top figure in the
Taliban militia, among six militants captured after a firefight near
the border. Nisar Ali Khan, an independent candidate running in next
week's parliamentary elections, was killed along with seven
supporters in a suicide attack in North Waziristan. Pakistani
lawyers began a nationwide boycott of the courts to pressure the
president to reinstate senior judges he sacked under a state of
emergency more than three months ago. Pakistani envoy, Tariq
Azizuddin, was heading to the Afghan capital Kabul with his driver
when they disappeared in the lawless Khyber tribal district.
Azizuddin was released on May 17. 2 technicians from the Pakistan
Atomic Energy Commission were abducted by masked men in the
country's northwest.
(AP, 2/11/08)(AFP, 2/12/08)(AP, 5/17/08)
2008 Feb 11, Spanish police
arrested at least 13 members of the outlawed Basque separatist party
Batasuna in a crackdown on groups linked to the armed organization
ETA before next month's elections.
(AP, 2/11/08)
2008 Feb 11, Uruguay President
Tabare Vazquez ousted his ministers of defense, foreign affairs and
industry, saying he was seeking a better team for his final two
years in office.
(AP, 2/12/08)

2009 Feb 11, US House and
Senate leaders agreed to a $789 stimulus package.
(SFC, 2/12/09, p.A1)
2009 Feb 11, Massachusetts' top
securities regulator said the wife of accused Wall Street swindler
Bernard Madoff pulled $15 million out of a brokerage account only
days before her husband was arrested.
(Reuters, 2/12/09)
2009 Feb 11, San Francisco city
leaders banned floats, beer and nudity for the upcoming 98th annual
Bay to Breakers run. On Feb 27 city officials agreed to allow nudity
and registered floats free of alcohol.
(SFC, 2/12/09, p.A1)(SFC, 2/28/09, p.B1)
2009 Feb 11, BrightSource
Energy of Oakland, California, announced that it will sell southern
California Edison 1,300 megawatts of electricity from 7 large solar
plants planned for the California desert. This was believed to be
the world’s largest solar deal to date. In September BrightSource
said it had ceased plans for a solar plant at Broadwell Dry Lake in
the Mojave desert.
(SFC, 2/12/09, p.A1)(SSFC, 9/20/09, p.D4)
2009 Feb 11, Estelle Bennett
(67), one of the Ronettes, was found dead at her home in Englewood,
N.J. She was part of the singing trio whose 1963 hit "Be My Baby"
epitomized the famed "wall of sound" technique of its producer, Phil
Spector.
(AP, 2/13/09)
2009 Feb 11, In NYC Guido
Salvador Carabajo-Jara (26), an immigrant from Ecuador, died after
he was hit by a car then trapped under a van and dragged for nearly
20 miles.
(SFC, 2/13/09, p.A6)
2009 Feb 11, In Afghanistan 8
Taliban gunmen wearing suicide vests attacked 3 government buildings
in a coordinated assault that killed 20 people in the heart of Kabul
just ahead of a planned visit from the new US envoy to the region. A
spokesman for the Taliban, said the attacks were in response to the
alleged mistreatment of Taliban prisoners in Afghan government
jails. In Logar province a roadside bomb exploded near a French
military medical team's convoy, killing one French officer and two
Afghans. Also in Logar province a helicopter with the US-backed
coalition killed five civilians as it responded to ground fire.
(AP, 2/11/09)
2009 Feb 11, In Austria Mike
Brennan, a teacher and former football player from Jacksonville,
Florida, working in Vienna, was attacked by two undercover police
officers at a subway station. The police did not identify themselves
and left Brennan lying on the platform. In 2010 prosecutors charged
an undercover policemen with badly beating the black American
teacher after mistaking him for a drug dealer. On Jan 11, 2011, a
judge convicted an undercover Austrian police officer of attacking
Brennan after mistaking him for an African drug dealer and ordered
him to pay a euro2,800 ($3,620) fine.
(AP, 4/27/10)(AP, 1/11/11)
2009 Feb 11, In Azerbaijan a
gunman fatally shot air force chief Lt. Gen. Rail Rzayev (63)
outside his home. He had represented Azerbaijan in talks with Russia
and the US on Moscow's 2007 proposal to make a Soviet-built radar
station in Azerbaijan.
(AP, 2/11/09)
2009 Feb 11, In Egypt
archeologist revealed the discovery of a burial chamber 36 feet
below ground at the necropolis of Saqqara dating back to about
640BC.
(WSJ, 2/12/09, p.A9)
2009 Feb 11, India’s Supreme
Court declared ragging, the bullying of first-year undergraduates by
older university students, a “human rights abuse in essence" and
ordered measures to stamp it out.
(Econ, 8/1/09, p.38)(http://tinyurl.com/lg6v9a)
2009 Feb 11, In Iraq at least
12 people were killed and 25 others wounded in bombings in Baghdad
targeting Shiite pilgrims traveling to Karbala.
(AP, 2/11/09)(SFC, 2/13/09, p.A4)
2009 Feb 11, Inconclusive
election results sent Israel into political limbo with both Foreign
Minister Tzipi Livni and hard-line leader Benjamin Netanyahu
claiming victory and leaving the kingmaker role to a rising
political hawk with an anti-Arab platform.
(AP, 2/11/09)
2009 Feb 11, In northwest
Pakistan provincial lawmaker Alam Zeb Khan was killed and seven
other people wounded after a bicycle bombing in Peshawar, as US
envoy Richard Holbrooke visited the city.
(AFP, 2/11/09)
2009 Feb 11, The Philippines
Supreme Court said in a statement it had ordered Manila to negotiate
with the US authorities for an "appropriate agreement on detention
facilities under Philippine authorities" for Lance Corporal Daniel
Smith. In 2006 Smith was convicted and sentenced to 40 years in jail
for raping a Filipina after he took part in military exercises north
of Manila in 2005.
(AFP, 2/11/09)
2009 Feb 11, Off Somalia the
USS Vella Gulf detained seven suspected pirates, the Navy's first
arrests since it established an anti-piracy task force this year.
(AP, 2/13/09)
2009 Feb 11, Officials in
Uruguay said a Cuban long-distance runner and track coach have
disappeared and apparently intend to defect. Aguelmis Rojas and
Rafael Diaz had arrived in January on a sports exchange program in
Maldonado.
(AP, 2/12/09)
2009 Feb 11, Judges at the
Yugoslav war crimes tribunal voted to suspend the trial of
ultranationalist Serb leader Vojislav Seselj after the prosecution
said its case was being undermined by witness intimidation. The
decision came after 71 prosecution witnesses had already been heard
and with only a handful still to testify.
(AP, 2/11/09)
2009 Feb 11, Zimbabwe's
opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai was sworn in as prime minister,
joining President Robert Mugabe in a unity government after a decade
of struggling to push him from power.
(AFP, 2/11/09)

2010 Feb 11, The US military
used a laser gun aboard a Boeing 747 jumbo jet to shoot down a
missile near Point Mugu, Ventura County, Ca. The airborne laser
program began in 1996 and has cost billion of dollars.
(SFC, 2/13/10, p.A6)
2010 Feb 11, A Taliban suicide
bomber wearing a border police uniform entered a US military base
near the Pakistani border and blew himself up injuring five
Americans. A joint Afghan-NATO force killed several insurgents
during a raid on a compound where troops discovered the bodies of
two men and two bound and gagged women. Family members accused US
soldiers of killing innocent civilians.
(AP, 2/12/10)
2010 Feb 11, In the Antarctic
Ocean Sea Shepherd protesters shot butyric acid, produced from
stinking rancid butter, at Japanese whalers to try to disrupt the
annual whale hunt. The activists maintained that butyric acid is
nontoxic.
(AP, 2/12/10)
2010 Feb 11, In Australia a
shadowy group of cyber-activists succeeded in jamming key Australian
government websites for a second consecutive day and warned they
could shut down the sites for months in protest over controversial
plans to filter the Internet. Codenamed "Operation: Titstorm", the
hacking campaign involved hundreds of people from around the world
and used a technique called Distributed Denial of Service to jam web
traffic.
(AFP, 2/11/10)
2010 Feb 11, In Brazil gunfire
erupted in a Rio de Janeiro slum, killing at least seven suspected
drug traffickers and a policeman a day before the Carnival
celebrations kick off. Jose Roberto Arruda (57), the governor of
Brasilia, was detained after a witness in a corruption investigation
accused the governor of trying to bribe him.
(AP, 2/11/10)(Econ, 2/27/10, p.43)
2010 Feb 11, Volkswagen
announced it was recalling nearly 200,000 vehicles in Brazil because
of a problem with the rear wheels that could cause them to seize or
fall off.
(AP, 2/11/10)
2010 Feb 11, British fashion
designer Alexander McQueen (40) was found dead at his London home.
McQueen received recognition from Queen Elizabeth II in 2003, when
she made him a Commander of the British Empire for his fashion
leadership. A Feb 17 coroner’s report gave the cause of the fashion
designer's death as asphyxiation and hanging.
(AP, 2/11/10)(AP, 2/17/10)
2010 Feb 11, Christopher Grady
(41) drove his car into the freezing into the River Avon in Evesham,
Worcestershire, England, while his daughter was in the passenger
seat. Gabrielle was trapped inside the submerged car for two hours
and died three days later in hospital. His then six-year-old son
Ryan Grady, survived after being rescued from the water by police.
On March 18, 2011, Christopher Grady was convicted of murdering his
daughter.
(AFP, 3/18/11)
2010 Feb 11, In Ecuador tens of
thousands of protesters crowded into downtown Guayaquil, answering a
call from the mayor of Ecuador's biggest city to demonstrate against
the national government. Mayor Jaime Nebot, a conservative, accused
President Rafael Correa of trying to build a system that Nebot
called a copy of Venezuela's leftist leader, Hugo Chavez.
(AP, 2/11/10)
2010 Feb 11, Indonesia's former
anti-graft chief, Antasari Azhar (56), was convicted of plotting the
murder of a businessman and sentenced to 18 years in prison, in a
case that has undermined the country's fight against corruption.
(AP, 2/11/10)
2010 Feb 11, Iran’s President
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad claimed that Iran has produced its first batch
of uranium enriched to a higher level, saying his country will not
be bullied by the West into curtailing its nuclear program a day
after the US imposed new sanctions. Hundreds of thousands of
government supporters massed in central Tehran to mark the
anniversary of the revolution that created Iran's Islamic republic,
while a heavy security force that fanned across the city moved
quickly to snuff out counter protests by the opposition.
(AP, 2/11/10)
2010 Feb 11, The Iraqi interior
minister said he had expelled 250 ex-employees of the American
security firm Blackwater, whose guards were charged with killing
unarmed civilians in Baghdad.
(AP, 2/11/10)
2010 Feb 11, Opponents of
Israel's contentious separation barrier in the West Bank scored a
long-awaited victory when the government began rerouting the
enclosure to eat up less of a Palestinian village that has become a
symbol of anti-wall protests and the site of frequent clashes. A
Palestinian militant was killed and two young girls wounded by
Israeli fire in the Gaza Strip in two separate incidents.
(AP, 2/11/10)(AFP, 2/11/10)
2010 Feb 11, Italy's Fiat SpA
and Russian automobile company Sollers announced a euro2.4 billion
($3.3 billion) joint venture to produce up to 500,000 vehicles per
year in Russia in a bid to become the country's second-largest car
maker.
(AP, 2/11/10)
2010 Feb 11, A Libyan appeal
court reduced the 16-month jail sentence of Max Goeldi, a Swiss
businessman, for overstaying his visa to four months.
(AFP, 2/11/10)
2010 Feb 11, In Pakistan a
double bombing targeted police killing up to 15 people and wounding
25 others in the northwestern town of Bannu.
(AFP, 2/11/10)
2010 Feb 11, The Philippines
launched a European-funded program to reduce the country's large
number of extralegal killings and disappearances of activists,
journalists and union workers. The EU has pledged euro3.9 million
($5.36 million) for the EU-Philippines Justice Support Program to
provide technical aid and training to bolster the country's criminal
justice system.
(AP, 2/11/10)
2010 Feb 11, Russian government
forces killed 4 innocent civilians in the North Caucasus. 4 garlic
pickers died along with 18 suspected Islamic militants in a
three-day shootout in the mountainous forests that straddle the
North Caucasus provinces of Ingushetia and Chechnya.
(AP, 4/3/10)
2010 Feb 11, The Saudi
religious police launched a nationwide crackdown on stores selling
items that are red or in any other way allude to the banned
celebrations of Valentine's Day.
(AP, 2/11/10)
2010 Feb 11, In Spain Roberto
Florez Garcia (44), a former Spanish intelligence officer, was
convicted of trying to sell secrets to Russia and imprisoned for 12
years. Garcia worked at Spain's intelligence headquarters from 1991
to 2004, when he quit. He was arrested on the Canary island of
Tenerife in 2007 and went on trial in January.
(AP, 2/11/10)
2010 Feb 11, Sri Lankan police
swinging batons dispersed a crowd protesting the detention of the
defeated opposition presidential candidate, former army chief Sarath
Fonseka, who appealed to his supporters for calm.
(AP, 2/11/10)
2010 Feb 11, In Tanzania a UN
tribunal found former Rwandan Lt. Col. Tharcisse Muvunyi guilty of
exhorting a crowd to kill Tutsis and destroy their homes during the
1994 genocide that ripped through the Central African nation. He was
sentenced to 15 years in prison.
(AP, 2/11/10)
2010 Feb 11, Thai prosecutors
said they have dropped charges against the five-man crew of an
aircraft accused of smuggling weapons from North Korea, saying the
men, arrested on Dec 12, might be guilty but would be deported to
preserve good relations with their home countries. The decision was
made after the governments of Belarus and Kazakhstan contacted the
Thai Foreign Ministry and requested the crew's release so they can
be investigated at home.
(AP, 2/11/10)

2011 Feb 11, A top US diplomat
for arms control said Poland and other Eastern European countries
are expressing concern to the United States about an arsenal of
tactical nuclear weapons believed to be at their doorsteps in
Russia's Kaliningrad exclave.
(AP, 2/11/11)
2011 Feb 11, Ingmar Guandique
(29) was convicted of 1st degree murder in the April 30, 2001,
disappearance of Chandra Levy (24), a DC intern from Modesto, Ca.
(SFC, 2/12/11, p.A6)
2011 Feb 11, Pandora Media
Inc., an Internet radio company, announced plans to go public and
raise as much as $100 million from sale of stock.
(SFC, 2/12/11, p.D1)
2011 Feb 11, Bahrain state news
agency BNA said the king has ordered that each family in the tiny
Gulf monarchy be given $3,000 to mark the 10th anniversary of a
national charter for reforms.
(Econ, 2/19/11, p.53)(http://tinyurl.com/4h7odkv)
2011 Feb 11, In Brazil at least
35 people, mostly Rio de Janeiro police officers, were arrested on
suspicion of colluding with drug gangs as the Brazilian city
attempts to clean itself up before hosting the 2014 World Cup and
the Olympic Games two years later.
(Reuters, 2/12/11)
2011 Feb 11, A British court
approved the extradition to the US of retired British businessman
Christopher Tappin, a man who allegedly plotted to sell missile
components to Iran. US authorities say Tappin offered in 2006 to
sell five specialized batteries for Hawk missiles for $25,000, not
knowing that his contacts were undercover US agents instead of
Iranians.
(AP, 2/11/11)
2011 Feb 11, Canada asked the
World Trade Organization to set up a panel to resolve its dispute
with the European Union over the EU's ban on trade in seal products.
(Reuters, 2/11/11)
2011 Feb 11, China’s foreign
Minister Yan Jiechi said that China plans to increase economic
cooperation with longtime African ally Zimbabwe in mining,
agriculture and other ventures. He met with Pres. Mugabe in Harare.
Mugabe thanked Yang for China's training of his guerrillas to help
in "demolishing colonialism" before independence from British
colonial rule in 1980.
(AP, 2/11/11)
2011 Feb 11, Colombian FARC
rebels released to the International Red Cross two more captives, a
young marine they captured eight months ago and Armando Acuna, a
town councilman (48) seized in 2009.
(AP, 2/11/11)
2011 Feb 11, Cuba agreed to
release 2 prominent dissidents who have refused for months to accept
exile in Spain. Hector Maseda and Angel Moya said they wanted to
remain in jail until other opposition leaders were freed and other
demands were met. Jail officials the next day simply tossed the men
out, saying they could no longer stay behind bars.
(AP, 2/11/11)(AP, 2/12/11)
2011 Feb 11, In Equatorial
Guinea writer Juan Tomas Avila Laurel (44) began a hunger strike. He
left Malabo the next day for Barcelona, Spain, amid fears for his
safety.
(AP, 2/27/11)
2011 Feb 11, Egypt's powerful
military tried to defuse outrage over President Hosni Mubarak's
refusal to step down, assuring it would guarantee promised reforms.
But hundreds of thousands only grew angrier, deluging squares in at
least three major cities and marching on presidential palaces and
the state TV building for a Day of Martyrs. Mubarak flew to the
Sinai resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, some 250 miles away from the
turmoil. Mubarak stepped down as Egypt's president following 18 days
of mass protests, handing over to the army and ending three decades
of autocratic rule. Vice President Omar Suleiman named a military
council to run the country's affairs. Cairo erupted in a cacophony
of celebration: fireworks and car horns and gunshots in the air.
Defense Minister Hussein Tantawi (75) took power from Mubarak. CBS
correspondent Lara Logan was beaten and sexually assaulted by a mob
while covering the jubilation in Cairo's Tahrir Square. She was
saved by a group of women and an estimated 20 Egyptian soldiers.
About 23,000 of the nation's 80,000 prisoners escaped during the
18-day uprising that lead to the ouster of President Hosanna
Mubarak.
(AP, 2/11/11)(Reuters, 2/11/11)(AP, 2/12/11)(AP,
2/16/11)(Reuters, 2/16/11)(Econ, 2/12/11, p.28)(AP, 3/11/11)
2011 Feb 11, Finland’s Nokia
corp. announced plans to make Microsoft Windows its primary software
in the competition for smart-phone customers.
(SFC, 2/12/11, p.D1)
2011 Feb 11, Diplomatic
relations between France and Mexico deteriorated into a crisis,
after a Mexican court upheld a 60-year prison term for Florence
Cassez (36), a French woman convicted of kidnapping.
(AFP, 2/12/11)
2011 Feb 11, In Iran hundreds
of thousands turned out to mark the 32nd anniversary of the
country’s Islamic Revolution in a rally the clerical establishment
billed as a chance to show solidarity with "Islamic" protesters in
Egypt.
(Reuters, 2/11/11)
2011 Feb 11, Italy warned it
faces a humanitarian crisis with some 1,600 would-be migrants from
Tunisia arriving in its waters over the past two weeks following
unrest in their home country.
(AP, 2/11/11)
2011 Feb 11, Hundreds of
Jordanians took to the streets in rival protests, one calling for
the ouster of their new prime minister and the other to support
toppling Egypt's embattled leader.
(AP, 2/11/11)
2011 Feb 11, Malaysian
prosecutors filed charges carrying the death penalty against seven
suspected Somali pirates accused of attacking a Malaysian-operated
ship in the Gulf of Aden, in the first such charges in Asia against
the African sea bandits.
(AP, 2/11/11)
2011 Feb 11, Pakistan's Pres.
Asif Ali Zardari swore 22 ministers into office in the first phase
of a government reshuffle designed to reduce the size of the cabinet
and curb public spending.
(AFP, 2/11/11)
2011 Feb 11, Pakistani police
baton charged Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) employees,
detaining 20 of them, following violent protests as all of the
carrier's flights remained grounded for a second day.
(AFP, 2/11/11)
2011 Feb 11, Pakistani police
alleged that Raymond Allen Davis, an American held in a pair of Jan
27 shootings, committed "cold-blooded murder." A judge ordered the
man's detention extended for 14 days in a local jail and told the
Pakistani government to clarify if he has diplomatic immunity.
(AP, 2/11/11)
2011 Feb 11, Rwanda's High
Court sentenced opposition leader Bernard Ntaganda, the founder of
the PS-Imberakuri party, to four years in prison and fined three
others opposition figures in a trial that an international human
rights body said was politically motivated.
(AP, 2/12/11)
2011 Feb 11, Switzerland froze
any assets belonging to Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak or his family.
(SFC, 2/12/11, p.A5)
2011 Feb 11, In Switzerland a
twin-engine plane crashed at an altitude of 9,200 feet (2,800
meters) in the Val d'Anniviers near the border with Italy. A Swiss
pilot and a French family of 4 were killed in the crash.
(AP, 2/13/11)
2011 Feb 11, A Turkish court
ruled that 133 current and former military officers must be jailed
pending the outcome of their trial on charges of plotting to
overthrow the government and issued warrants for the arrests of 29
other officers.
(AP, 2/12/11)
2011 Feb 11, Yemeni police,
including plainclothes agents, drove several thousand protesters
away from Sanaa's main square. The demonstrators tore up pictures of
President Ali Abdullah Saleh and shouted slogans demanding his
immediate resignation.
(AP, 2/12/11)

2012 Feb 11, Mitt Romney scored
a narrow low turnout victory, 39% to 36%, over Ron Paul in Maine's
Republican presidential caucuses. Rick Santorum finished third with
18%. Newt Gingrich finished fourth, with 6%. Maine's 24 delegates
are not allocated by the results of the caucuses.
(SSFC, 2/12/12, p.A16)
2012 Feb 11, Whitney Houston
(b.1963), singer and actress, died at the Beverly Hilton hotel on
the eve of the Grammy Awards in Los Angeles. Houston was found
"underwater and unconscious" in the bathtub of her hotel room.
Prescription drugs were found nearby, and bottles of champagne and
beer were in the adjacent room. Her soaring voice lifted her to the
top of the pop music world but a personal decline was fueled by
years of drug use. She crossed over from music success to TV and
movies, appearing in "The Bodyguard" (1992), as well as "Waiting to
Exhale" (1995) and "The Preacher's Wife" (1996).
(Reuters, 2/12/12)(AP, 2/14/12)
2012 Feb 11, In eastern
Afghanistan gunmen burst into a family home of a provincial judge,
killing him and his niece in the latest assassination of an Afghan
government official. Mohammad Nasir, the head of the appeals court
for Kunar province, was visiting family in neighboring Nangarhar
province. A helicopter operated by US military contractors crashed
in the mountains of Zabul province, killing all four Tajik crew
members.
(AP, 2/12/12)
2012 Feb 11, Bahrain deported
two American women accused of aiding antigovernment activists. On
Feb 16 the Information Affairs Authority said 6 members of Witness
Bahrain, a group monitoring potential human rights abuses, have been
deported.
(SSFC, 2/12/12, p.A6)(SFC, 2/17/12, p.A2)
2012 Feb 11, In Bangladesh 2
prominent television journalists, Meherun Runi (33) and Sagar Sarwar
(35), were brutally stabbed to death at their home in the capital
Dhaka. The couple's son (6) called his grandmother and said that his
parents were lying on the floor.
(AFP, 2/11/12)
2012 Feb 11, In Brazil police
in the northeastern state of Bahia voted to end their 12-day
walkout, during which time the homicide rate doubled to more than
130 in the metropolitan area of Salvador. Officials on Feb 13 said
current and former police officers may have committed up to 30
murders during the police strike in Bahia state.
(AP, 2/12/12)(AP, 2/14/12)
2012 Feb 11, Britain's
biggest-selling tabloid newspaper, The Sun, was fighting to contain
the damage after five of its employees were arrested in an inquiry
into the alleged payment of bribes to police and other officials. A
39-year-old female employee at Britain's defense ministry, a
36-year-old male member of the armed forces and a 39-year-old
serving police officer with Surrey Police, were also arrested in an
early morning raid.
(AP, 2/11/12)
2012 Feb 11, Canada set the
seal on improving ties with China by agreeing to a 10-year loan for
two giant pandas, traditionally an indication of official approval
from Beijing.
(Reuters, 2/11/12)
2012 Feb 11, In China Tenzin
Choedron (Choedon), an 18-year-old nun, set herself on fire in
Sichuan province and later died, the latest in a spate of such
incidents among ethnic Tibetans protesting Beijing's rule.
(AFP, 2/12/12)
2012 Feb 11, In Egypt student
activists held strikes to mark a year since they toppled Hosni
Mubarak, leaving an increasingly unpopular and defiant military in
charge. The planned day of civil disobedience and strikes saw only a
small turnout.
(AFP, 2/11/12)
2012 Feb 11, It was reported
that a mysterious epidemic is devastating the Pacific coast of
Central America, killing more than 24,000 people in El Salvador and
Nicaragua since 2000 and striking thousands of others with chronic
kidney disease at rates unseen virtually anywhere else. Scientists
say they have received reports of the phenomenon as far north as
southern Mexico and as far south as Panama. Researchers suspected
chronic dehydration. Elsy Brizuela, a doctor who works with an El
Salvadoran project to treat workers and research the epidemic,
discounts the dehydration theory and insists "the common factor is
exposure to herbicides and poisons." In Nicaragua, the number of
annual deaths from chronic kidney disease more than doubled in a
decade, from 466 in 2000 to 1,047 in 2010. In El Salvador there was
a similar jump, from 1,282 in 2000 to 2,181 in 2010.
(AP, 2/11/12)
2012 Feb 11, In Europe snow
drifts reaching up to rooftops kept tens of thousands of villagers
prisoners in their own homes as the death toll from the big freeze
rose past 550. On the French Mediterranean island of Corsica snow
was up to one meter thick in the higher villages and all flights
were cancelled from Bastia airport.
(AFP, 2/11/12)
2012 Feb 11, In Iraq a group of
political dissidents created a new opposition party, the Union of
Patriotic Figures, to act as a check on the country’s government.
(SSFC, 2/12/12, p.A6)
2012 Feb 11, In Iraq a car bomb
seriously wounded Lt. Col. Salman Kadhim, a local police chief in
Jbala. Two of Kadhim’s guards were also wounded in the explosion.
(AP, 2/11/12)
2012 Feb 11, In Indian Kashmir
protesters blocked a main highway after a young man was shot dead by
the army in what military officials described as an "accidental"
shooting. Ashiq Hussain Rather (22) was killed the previous evening
when a soldier accidentally fired his rifle as security forces
combed the area for militants.
(AFP, 2/11/12)
2012 Feb 11, In Japan thousands
demonstrated in Tokyo against nuclear power generation, 11 months
after a massive earthquake and tsunami sparked reactor meltdowns at
the Fukushima nuclear power plant.
(AFP, 2/11/12)
2012 Feb 11, In Kosovo at least
nine members of one family died in an avalanche that hit the village
of Restelica near the border with Macedonia. Ansera Reka (5) was
pulled from the rubble of one house after being buried for over 10
hours.
(AP, 2/12/12)
2012 Feb 11, Lebanese security
officials said clashes overnight between pro- and anti-Syria gunmen
in a northern Lebanese city have left one person dead and 12
wounded.
(AP, 2/11/12)
2012 Feb 11, Libya demanded
Niger hand over Al-Saadi Gadhafi, one of Moammar Gadhafi's sons who
is under house arrest there, after he warned in a television
interview that his homeland was facing a new uprising.
(AP, 2/11/12)
2012 Feb 11, Montenegro
authorities said the heaviest snow in 63 years has sealed off
hundreds of villages, shut roads and closed the main airport.
(AP, 2/11/12)
2012 Feb 11, In Myanmar some
5,000 software developers and bloggers gathered in Yangon for
BarCamp, a get-together of geeks founded 7 years ago in Silicon
Valley. The first BarCamp was held in Palo Alto, California, from
August 19–21, 2005, in the offices of Socialtext.
(Econ, 3/3/12,
p.78)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BarCamp)
2012 Feb 11, In Pakistan the
5-member Haqqani network leadership council distributed a pamphlet
ordering militants not to stage rocket or bomb attacks in North
Waziristan due to an agreement with the Pakistani government. The
Pakistani military has never publicly acknowledged a peace agreement
with militants in North Waziristan.
(AP, 2/12/12)
2012 Feb 11, Philippine
government agents in Manila arrested Dr. Eric Chan, alias Eric Uy
Garchitorena, accused of defrauding a California health care program
of more than $3 million.
(AP, 2/14/12)
2012 Feb 11, South Africa
launched a new line of bank notes bearing the image of its first
democratically elected president, Nelson Mandela (93), on the 22nd
anniversary of his release from prison.
(AFP, 2/11/12)
2012 Feb 11, Sri Lanka’s
government increased fuel prices. The last night action led to
protests across the country.
(AP, 2/15/12)
2012 Feb 11, In Syria gunmen
assassinated Brig. Gen. Issa al-Khouli in Damascus in the first
killing of a high ranking military officer in the capital since the
uprising against President Bashar Assad's regime began in March.
Al-Khouli was a doctor and the chief of a military hospital in the
capital. Violence in other parts of the country left at least 11
people dead as regime troops pushed into rebel-held neighborhoods in
Homs and shelled the mountain town of Zabadani. Zabadani capitulated
to government forces.
(AP, 2/11/12)(Econ, 2/18/12, p.51)
2012 Feb 11, Turkish warplanes
bombed suspected Kurdish rebel targets in northern Iraq.
(AP, 2/12/12)

2013 Feb 11, US Defense Sec.
Leon Panetta extended additional military benefits to gay and
lesbian couples.
(SFC, 2/12/13, p.A5)
2013 Feb 11, The US began its
withdrawal from Afghanistan in earnest, sending the first of what
will be tens of thousands of containers home through a once-blocked
land route through Pakistan.
(AP, 2/11/13)
2013 Feb 11, In Delaware a
gunman battling over child custody opened fire in a courtroom in
Wilmington leaving two women dead before fatally shooting himself.
(SFC, 2/12/13, p.A50)
2013 Feb 11, In Florida former
state Republican Party chairman Jim Greer (50) pleaded guilty to
theft and money laundering just before jury selection was to begin
in his criminal trial.
(SFC, 2/12/13, p.A4)
2013 Feb 11, An Afghan
government panel acknowledged widespread torture of detainees after
a 2-week investigation of a UN report citing rampant abuses.
(SFC, 2/12/13, p.A2)
2013 Feb 11, Angola received a
boost to its free speech from the Portuguese courts, which refused
to allow Angolan generals to stop the publication of the book
“"Blood Diamonds: Corruption and Torture in Angola" by Rafael
Marques. It exposed corruption and human rights abuses in the
country's lucrative diamond mines.
(AP, 2/13/13)
2013 Feb 11, British health
officials said a new virus from the same family as SARS, that
sparked a global alert last September, has been found in a patient
in Manchester who had traveled to the Middle East and Pakistan.
(AP, 2/11/13)
2013 Feb 11, Egypt’s Senior
Scholars Authority elected Shawki Ibrahim Abdel-Karim, a professor
in Islamic jurisprudence, as Grand Mufti. Previously, the Grand
Mufti was appointed by the president. Security forces sprayed
protesters with water hoses and tear gas outside the presidential
palace as Egyptians marked the 2nd anniversary of the fall of Hosni
Mubarak's with demonstrations against his elected
successor.
(AP, 2/11/13)
2013 Feb 11, French and Malian
government forces regained control of Gao.
(AP, 2/11/13)
2013 Feb 11, In
Indian-controlled Kashmir 3 young people were left dead in violence
despite a curfew that continued for a third day following the Feb 9
execution of a Kashmiri man convicted in a deadly 2001 attack on
India's Parliament.
(AP, 2/11/13)
2013 Feb 11, In Iraq suicide
bomber detonated his explosives-laden truck late at night at the
gate of a military base inside the city of Mosul. 7 people were
killed and 15 wounded. Elsewhere in Mosul assailants broke into a
house, stabbing to death two men and two women, including a
provincial officer's bodyguard.
(AP, 2/12/13)
2013 Feb 11, Millions of
Kenyans watched and listened to the nation's first-ever presidential
debate. The two front-running candidates, Deputy PM Uhuru Kenyatta
and PM Raila Odinga. traded barbs over the looming trial of Kenyatta
in the International Criminal Court.
(AP, 2/12/13)
2013 Feb 11, In Liberia a plane
carrying senior officials from Guinea crashed near Liberia's largest
airport, killing 11 people including Guinea's army chief of staff
Gen. Souleymane Kelefa Diallo.
(AP, 2/11/13)(AP, 2/12/13)
2013 Feb 11, Hundreds of
Rwandans marched to the offices of the United Nations tribunal set
up to try key cases related to Rwanda's 1994 genocide to protest the
court's decision to acquit two former cabinet ministers accused of
masterminding killings.
(AP, 2/11/13)
2013 Feb 11, Somali police said
a suicide car bomb attack targeting a senior Puntland police
commander in Galkayo killed only the bomber.
(AP, 2/11/13)
2013 Feb 11, Syrian rebels
captured the Furat dam, the country's largest dam, after days of
intense clashes, giving them control over water and electricity
supplies for much of the country in a major blow to President
Assad's regime. UN human rights chief Navi Pillay said the number of
people killed in Syria is probably now approaching 70,000.
(AP, 2/11/13)(AP, 2/13/13)
2013 Feb 11, In Turkey a car
bomb exploded at the Bab al-Hawa frontier post along Syria's border,
killing 14 people. A Syrian opposition faction later accused the
Syrian government of the bombing, saying it narrowly missed 13
leaders of the group. On March 11 Turkey’s police said five suspects
have been detained.
(AP, 2/11/13)(SFC, 2/12/13, p.A2)(AP, 3/11/13)
2013 Feb 11, Uganda deported,
David Cecil (35), a British theatre producer charged with staging a
play about homosexuality. A court threw out a case against Cecil
last month.
(Reuters, 2/12/13)
2013 Feb 11, Pope Benedict XVI
(85) announced that he would resign Feb. 28 — the first pontiff to
do so in nearly 600 years. The decision set the stage for a conclave
to elect a new pope before the end of March.
(AP, 2/11/13)
2013 Feb 11, Zimbabwe police
raided the offices of a member organization of Crisis in Zimbabwe,
an alliance of rights groups, and seized files on political
violence, funding details, DVD display materials, mobile phones and
other equipment. Officials of the widely respected Zimbabwe Peace
Project were accused of illegal importation of goods and "possessing
articles for criminal use."
(AP, 2/12/13)

2014 Feb 11, Voters in Fremont,
Nebraska, decided to keep an ordnance that requires renters to get a
$5 permit and swear they have legal permission to live in the US.
(SFC, 2/13/14, p.A14)
2014 Feb 11, The websites of
casinos owned by Las Vegas Sands Corp. were hacked. These included
sites for a Sands casino in Bethlehem, Pa., as well as casinos in
Nevada and Macao.
(SFC, 2/12/14, p.A4)
2014 Feb 11, Washington state
Gov. Jay Inslee said he was suspending the use of the death penalty
for as long as he’s in office.
(SFC, 2/12/14, p.A4)
2014 Feb 11, The Afghan public
health ministry said it has launched an emergency polio vaccination
campaign in Kabul after a girl contracted the disease, the city's
first case since the Taliban were ousted in 2001.
(AFP, 2/11/14)
2014 Feb 11, An Algerian
military transport plane crashed in the country's mountainous east
with but one survivor. 76 people were killed, including women and
children.
(AP, 2/11/14)(AP, 2/12/14)
2014 Feb 11, Brazil’s
Environment Ministry said it will begin a program to save the
endangered three-banded armadillo, the mascot for this year’s World
Cup.
(SFC, 2/12/14, p.A2)
2014 Feb 11, Barclays PLC faced
widespread criticism after the scandal-plagued bank announced plans
to slash up to 12,000 jobs this year while also setting aside more
money to pay bonuses.
(AP, 2/11/14)
2014 Feb 11, The Burundi Red
Cross said torrential rains and landslides have left at least 77
people dead and about 12,000 displaced.
(Reuters, 2/11/14)
2014 Feb 11, China and Taiwan
held talks in Nanjing, their highest level talks since splitting
amid a civil war in 1949.
(SFC, 2/11/14, p.A2)
2014 Feb 11, Cyprus Pres. Nicos
Anastasiades met with Dervis Eroglu on the UN’s “green line" and put
forward a “road-map" where their two communities would unite under a
federation but run their affairs as “constituent states."
(Econ, 2/15/14, p.48)
2014 Feb 11, Czech Rep. media
reported that former PM Petr Necas has been charged with bribery for
his alleged role in offering state posts to three former members of
parliament who had been rebelling against the previous government’s
austerity program, in return for them leaving office.
(SFC, 2/13/14, p.A2)(http://tinyurl.com/nyjfczk)
2014 Feb 11, French Pres.
Francois Hollande arrived in the US for a formal state visit.
(SFC, 2/11/14, p.A5)
2014 Feb 11, German and Dutch
authorities arrested five men in a sting operation against a website
allegedly used to sell illegal drugs and weapons.
(AP, 2/13/14)
2014 Feb 11, In India Arvind
Kejriwal, Delhi's new chief minister, took his anti-graft campaign
to new heights, ordering an investigation into India's richest man,
Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani, and policymakers over
gas pricing.
(Reuters, 2/11/14)
2014 Feb 11, In Iraq militants
in pick-up trucks ambushed army outposts protecting a major oil
export pipeline in Nineveh province overnight, killing at least 16
soldiers by shooting them and slitting their throats.
(Reuters, 2/11/14)
2014 Feb 11, Police in Italy
and New York broke up a major trans-Atlantic mafia ring, arresting
24 people accused of plotting to move hundreds of millions of
dollars in drugs between South America, Italy and the USA.
(Reuters, 2/11/14)
2014 Feb 11, The value of
Kazakhstan currency, the tenge, fell by 19%.
(Econ, 2/22/14, p.35)
2014 Feb 11, Libyan media said
six journalists have been kidnapped in recent days in Tripoli, and
though one has been released the whereabouts of the other five
remained unknown.
(SFC, 2/12/14, p.A2)
2014 Feb 11, In northeast
Nigeria gunmen from Islamist sect Boko Haram killed 51 people in an
attack on Konduga, Borno state.
(Reuters, 2/12/14)
2014 Feb 11, In Pakistan
unknown assailants lobbed grenades into a cinema in Peshawar,
killing 10 people and wounding 16.
(Reuters, 2/11/14)
2014 Feb 11, Serbia's war
crimes court jailed nine former members of the "Jackals," a Serbian
paramilitary group, for killing more than 120 ethnic Albanian
civilians during the Kosovo conflict in 1999.
(Reuters, 2/11/14)
2014 Feb 11, South Africa
issued a black-and-white commemorative stamp to celebrate the life
and legacy of anti-apartheid hero Nelson Mandela who died last year.
(AFP, 2/11/14)
2014 Feb 11, In Syria the
evacuation of civilians from besieged rebel-held areas of Homs was
suspended, as a mediator said peace talks in Switzerland were making
little progress.
(AFP, 2/11/14)
2014 Feb 11, In Tanzania the
UN-backed court for Rwanda acquitted on appeal former paramilitary
police chief Augustin Ndindiliyimana and ex-elite battalion
commander Francois-Xavier Nzuwonemeye of charges related to the 1994
genocide.
(AFP, 2/11/14)
2014 Feb 11, In central Ukraine
Oleksandr Lobodenko (34), a judge who placed several anti-government
protesters under house arrest, was murdered overnight in Kremenchuk.
(AFP, 2/12/14)
2014 Feb 11, In western
Venezuela armed pro-government groups attacked and shot at people
protesting against President Nicolas Maduro's government, injuring
five.
(Reuters, 2/12/14)
2014 Feb 11, In Yemen northern
Shiite rebels and a faction demanding southern autonomy rejected a
six-region federation plan for Yemen, agreed by parties during the
"national dialogue" aimed at securing the country's political
transition.
(AFP, 2/11/14)
2014 Feb 11, In Yemen a British
teacher was abducted on his way from an educational institute in
Sanaa and reportedly taken to Marib.
(AP, 2/13/14)

2015 Feb 11, US President
Barack Obama sent Congress his text for an authorization to use
military force in the campaign against Islamic State, limiting
operations against the militants to three years and barring use of
US troops in "enduring offensive ground combat."
(Reuters, 2/11/15)
2015 Feb 11, The Obama
administration introduced an aggressive plan to stem illegal
wildlife trafficking.
(SFC, 2/12/15, p.A9)
2015 Feb 11, The San Francisco
Board of Supervisors approved 550 default deals. These included the
sale of Presidio Terrace, after residents failed to pay $994 in back
taxes, to Michael Cheng and Tina Lam for $90,000. The tax bills had
been sent to an accountant who had not worked for the neighborhood
association in years. On Nov. 28, 2017, city supervisors reversed
the tax sale.
(SFC, 11/29/17, p.A7)
2015 Feb 11, The San Francisco
medical examiner’s office said a dismembered body found in a
suitcase on Jan 28 was that of Omar Shahwan (58), a longtime friend
of Jeffrey Andrus, the prime suspect in the case, who died on Feb 8.
(SFC, 2/12/15, p.A1)
2015 Feb 11, A former San
Francisco police officer and four others were indicted by a federal
grand jury in San Jose on charges that they hacked into computers to
gain an advantage over adversaries in civil lawsuits.
(SFC, 2/12/15, p.D6)
2015 Feb 11, In NYC Bob Simon
(b.1941), a CBS correspondent, was killed in a car crash in
Manhattan.
(SFC, 2/12/15, p.A11)
2015 Feb 11, An unmanned Falcon
9 rocket from Elong Musk’s SpaceX blasted off from Cape Canaveral
carrying a research satellite. Rough seas forced abandonment of a
plan to recover the booster aboard a ship.
(SFC, 2/12/15, p.C4)
2015 Feb 11, Australia faced
increased pressure to reform its immigration system after a new
report showed more than a third of refugee children detained under
those policies had developed a mental illness requiring psychiatric
care.
(AP, 2/11/15)
2015 Feb 11, A Belgian court
sentenced Fouad Belkacem, the leader of Sharia4Belgium, to twelve
years in prison and gave dozens of other members lower sentences.
The group had recruited youngsters to fight in Syria and was
declared a terrorist organization.
(SFC, 2/12/15, p.A2)
2015 Feb 11, Bosnia's
parliament approved Denis Zvizdic as prime minister after he
promised to unblock the Balkan country's stalled bid to join the EU
and push through reforms sought by the bloc.
(Reuters, 2/11/15)
2015 Feb 11, In Brazil an
explosion on an oil ship off the coast of Espirito Santo state
killed at least 5 people. Four workers remained missing.
(AP, 2/12/15)
2015 Feb 11, Chadian soldiers
killed 13 fighters from Islamist militant group Boko Haram in a
battle in the Nigerian town of Gambaru. One Chadian soldier was
reported killed.
(Reuters, 2/11/15)
2015 Feb 11, East Timor
announced that President Taur Matan Ruak has chosen opposition party
member Rui Maria de Araujo (50), a former health minister, as the
new prime minister.
(AP, 2/11/15)
2015 Feb 11, Egypt's highest
appeals court overturned death sentences for 36 members of the
Muslim Brotherhood, which the government has labelled a terrorist
group, and ordered a retrial. The case stemmed from an August 2013
attack on a police station in the southern town of el-Adwa when a
police officer and a civilian were killed.
(AP, 2/11/15)
2015 Feb 11, In Iraq clashes
between government forces and militants outside Tikrit along with
attacks in Baghdad killed at least 22 people and wounded dozens.
(AP, 2/11/15)
2015 Feb 11, In Italy Francesco
Schettino, former captain of the capsized Costa Concordia, was
convicted and sentenced to 16 years in prison for manslaughter,
causing the Jan 13, 2012, shipwreck that claimed 32 lives. Schettino
lost his final appeal in 2017 and began serving his 16-year
sentence.
(SFC, 2/12/15, p.A2)(SFC, 5/13/17, p.A2)
2015 Feb 11, Liberia's Pres.
Ellen Johnson Sirleaf vowed that the country would get to zero Ebola
cases soon as the US military announced it will be withdrawing most
of its troops who have spent the last several months helping to
battle the disease.
(AP, 2/11/15)
2015 Feb 11, In Libya UN
negotiators restarted talks in Ghadames with delegates from Libya's
warring factions, meeting separately with rival parties in an
attempt to end the political crisis and reach a ceasefire.
(Reuters, 2/11/15)
2015 Feb 11, Mali officials
said motorcycle-riding poachers have killed at least 19 elephants
over the past month, marking a significant blow to a rare grouping
that lives in central Mali. It is believed there are only 350 to 700
elephants left in Mali.
(AP, 2/11/15)
2015 Feb 11, The Mozambique
government said a cholera epidemic has killed 19 people in the north
following flooding that devastated the region.
(AFP, 2/11/15)
2015 Feb 11, Myanmar's
government reached an agreement with student protesters who have
been marching to Yangon to seek education reforms, but the deal
announced by the two sides still needs parliamentary approval.
(AP, 2/11/15)
2015 Feb 11, Myanmar's
president declared that a system of temporary identification cards
for people seeking citizenship will become invalid at the end of
March, negating an earlier decision that would have allowed card
holders to vote in an upcoming constitutional referendum. The
temporary identification cards, popularly called "white cards," were
created by the former military regime for the 2010 elections in
which it relinquished power to a nominally civilian government.
(AP, 2/11/15)
2015 Feb 11, In Niger two
female suicide bombers blew themselves up in the frontier town of
Diffa, following days of cross-border attacks by Nigerian Islamist
group Boko Haram.
(Reuters, 2/11/15)
2015 Feb 11, In Poland hundreds
of angry farmers drove their tractors toward Warsaw, where their
leaders were seeking government compensation for crops destroyed by
wild boar, profits undercut by Russia's import ban and new market
regulations.
(AP, 2/11/15)
2015 Feb 11, Serbian security
forces stepped up patrols and deployed an elite unit on its border
with Hungary, trying to halt a torrent of migrants that has
triggered alarm in many European Union countries.
(AP, 2/11/15)
2015 Feb 11, The Syrian
Observatory for Human Rights said government air force raids have
killed at least 183 people in insurgent strongholds east of the
capital in the past 10 days.
(Reuters, 2/11/15)
2015 Feb 11, Ukrainian forces
battled pro-Russian rebels for territory on one of the bloodiest
days in the 10-month war ahead of a pivotal peace summit on the
conflict.
(AFP, 2/11/15)
2015 Feb 11, Venezuelan
authorities arrested Judge Ali Fabricio Paredes less than 24 hours
after he issued a sentence in a high-profile drug trafficking case
that prosecutors said is too lenient.
(AP, 2/11/15)
2015 Feb 11, In Yemen the US
embassy staff destroyed weapons, computers and documents before
closing and evacuating diplomats. Britain and France also moved to
close their embassies.
(Reuters, 2/11/15)(AP, 2/11/15)

2016 Feb 11, The US FBI
surrounded the last protesters holed up at a federal wildlife refuge
in Oregon amid reports they will surrender, suggesting the
weeks-long armed siege is approaching a climax.
(AFP, 2/11/16)
2016 Feb 11, Scientists at the
Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO)
announced the detection of the first gravitational wave recorded
last September 14. It stemmed from the merger of two black holes
some 1.3 billion years earlier. The LIGO project broke ground in
Hanford, Washington in late 1994 and in Livingston, Louisiana in
1995.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LIGO)(Econ,
2/13/16, p.77)
2016 Feb 11, Thousands of
junior doctors at English hospitals continued a second strike
against proposed new conditions and pay rates for working unsociable
hours.
(AFP, 2/11/16)
2016 Feb 11, Cameroon soldiers
killed at least 27 Boko Haram fighters after launching a
cross-border operation in the Nigerian locality of Goshi that also
resulted in the death of one soldier.
(AP, 2/12/16)
2016 Feb 11, Police in the
Dominican Republic killed one of two men suspected in the slaying of
an elderly German tourist during a robbery in Puerto Plata.
(AP, 2/12/16)
2016 Feb 11, In Egypt at least
69 people were injured when a train derailed and two of its cars
overturned as it was travelling north toward Cairo.
(AP, 2/11/16)
2016 Feb 11, In western France
at least six children were killed when a school minibus crashed into
a truck in Rochefort, a day after another road accident involving a
school bus left two youngsters dead near the Swiss border.
(AFP, 2/11/16)
2016 Feb 11, Three Greek navy
personnel were killed after their helicopter crashed into a small
islet in the Aegean Sea during an exercise.
(AFP, 2/12/16)
2016 Feb 11, Indian authorities
detained dozens of Kashmiri activists and placed separatist leaders
under house arrest to prevent them from holding anti-India protests
to mark the anniversary of a top separatist leader's hanging more
than three decades ago.
(AP, 2/11/16)
2016 Feb 11, The Indonesian
government told instant messaging apps to remove stickers featuring
same-sex couples in the latest high-profile attempt to discourage
visible homosexuality in the socially conservative country.
(AP, 2/12/16)
2016 Feb 11, In central Mali
suspected Islamist militants killed 2 civilians and a customs
officer and burned a car in an attack on a customs post in Mopti.
(Reuters, 2/11/16)
2016 Feb 11, In Mexico 49
inmates were killed as two rival factions of the Zetas drug cartel
fought for control of the Topo Chico prison in Monterrey. During the
violence inmates set a fire in a supply room and TV images showed
flames coming out of the prison in the middle of the night.
(AFP, 2/12/16)
2016 Feb 11, Allied defense
ministers said NATO will send military vessels to the Aegean Sea to
help Turkey and Greece crack down on criminal networks smuggling
migrants and refugees into Europe.
(Reuters, 2/11/16)
2016 Feb 11, The Netherlands
said it would create a 300-strong rapid response security team that
could be deployed for border control anywhere, but primarily within
the European Union.
(Reuters, 2/11/16)
2016 Feb 11, North Korea said
it was kicking out all South Koreans from the jointly run Kaesong
industrial zone, calling the South's move to suspend operations, in
retaliation for Sunday's rocket launch by the North, a "declaration
of war".
(Reuters, 2/11/16)
2016 Feb 11, Russia's Defense
Ministry said that two US aircraft had bombed the Syrian city of
Aleppo on Feb. 10, and that Russian planes had not been operating in
the area.
(Reuters, 2/11/16)
2016 Feb 11, In Saudi Arabia a
man killed six employees in a "criminal" attack at an education
department office in the southern province of Jazan.
(AFP, 2/11/16)
2016 Feb 11, South Sudan's
President Salva Kiir named his arch-rival Riek Machar as
vice-president, raising hopes for the implementation of a repeatedly
broken peace deal to end more than two years of civil war.
(AFP, 2/12/16)
2016 Feb 11, In Syria
Kurdish-led fighters aided by Russian bombing captured the
rebel-held Menagh military airport near the border with Turkey.
Russian warplanes staged at least 30 raids against the rebels
holding out there.
(Reuters, 2/11/16)
2016 Feb 11, The Syrian Center
for Policy Research (SCPR) estimated that the death toll in the
current Syrian civil war has reached 470,000.
(Econ, 2/20/16, p.41)
2016 Feb 11, Thailand's
nomadic fishermen urged the government to help resolve a dispute
over access to ancestral shrines on land taken over by developers,
following violence in which dozens were injured last month.
(Reuters, 2/11/16)
2016 Feb 11, Turkey said that
its security forces have completed their operations against
militants in Cizre after weeks of fighting. Turkish security forces
killed 27 militants in the mainly Kurdish southeast.
(Reuters, 2/12/16)
2016 Feb 11, Venezuela's
Supreme Court approved President Nicolas Maduro's "economic
emergency" decree, setting up a showdown after the Venezuelan
Congress rejected the measure last month.
(Reuters, 2/11/16)

2017 Feb 11, In Connecticut the
Yale Univ. Pres. Peter Salovey said a residential college in New
Haven commemorating John Calhoun, the 19th century white supremacist
statesman from South Carolina, will be renamed for Grace Murray
Hopper, a computer scientist and Navy rear admiral.
(SSFC, 2/12/17, p.A8)
2017 Feb 11, In Afghanistan a
suicide bomber killed seven people and wounded 20 others outside a
bank in Lashkar Gah, Helmand province. A local official said that an
American military air strike killed a number of civilians in a
recent bombing in Sangin district north of Lashkar Gah.
(Reuters, 2/11/17)
2017 Feb 11, In Brazil military
police in the southeastern state of Espirito Santo rejected a
return-to-work agreement aimed at ending a strike that has paralyzed
several cities and led to an outburst of violence in which more than
130 people have reportedly died. More than 3,000 federal troops now
patrolled the streets.
(AP, 2/11/17)
2017 Feb 11, London's Sotheby's
auction house opened the "Erotica: Passion & Desire" show of
over 150 titillating items to explore the varied attitudes to nudity
and sex across eras and continents ahead of an auction for the next
week.
(AFP, 2/10/17)
2017 Feb 11, Sam Rainsy, the
self-exiled leader of Cambodia's opposition party, he would resign
his post, a shock blow to a movement struggling to unseat the
country's authoritarian premier. Rainsy has led the Cambodia
National Rescue Party (CNRP) since its creation in 2012 and has
spent over a year in France to avoid several lawsuits.
(AFP, 2/11/17)
2017 Feb 11, In China EHang, a
drone-making startup, performed a 1000 UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle)
formation light show named “Meteor Sky" at the Guangzhou city center
on the sky of the famous Canton Tower.
(http://www.ehang.com/news/249.html)(Econ,
3/11/17, p.64)
2017 Feb 11, In France some
15,000 people marched in the eastern city of Strasbourg demanding
that Turkey release Kurdish separatist leader Abdullah Ocalan, as
Europe's Kurds held their biggest annual gathering.
(AFP, 2/11/17)
2017 Feb 11, In France 37
people were arrested in the Paris suburbs when clashes erupted after
a protest over the Feb 2 assault of a young black man allegedly
sodomized with a police truncheon.
(AFP, 2/12/17)
2017 Feb 11, Millions of voters
in Uttar Pradesh, India's most populous state, cast their ballots in
a contest seen as a key test for Narendra Modi halfway through his
first term as prime minister.
(AFP, 2/11/17)
2017 Feb 11, In Indonesia tens
of thousands gathered at the national mosque in Jakarta for mass
prayers urging people to vote for a Muslim governor of the city as
the country prepares for regional elections next week.
(AP, 2/11/17)
2017 Feb 11, Indonesian
officials said up to 40,000 people were caught in severe flooding
following days of torrential rain in West Nusa Tenggara province.
The death toll from landslides on Bali resort island rose to 13.
(AP, 2/11/17)
2017 Feb 11, In Iraq six
demonstrators and one policeman were killed in clashes between
security forces and protesters loyal to prominent Shi'ite cleric
Moqtada al-Sadr who had gathered in Baghdad to demand political
reforms.
(AFP, 2/11/17)(AP, 2/12/17)
2017 Feb 11, The Iraqi air
force carried out a strike on a house where Islamic State leader Abu
Bakr al-Baghdadi was thought to be meeting other commanders. It
published the names of 13 Islamic State commanders it said had been
killed in the air strike, but the list did not include Baghdadi.
Three other Islamic State positions in western Iraq were targeted in
the same wave of air strikes, killing 64 fighters.
(Reuters, 2/13/17)
2017 Feb 11, In New Zealand a
new pod of 240 whales swam aground at a remote beach just hours
after weary volunteers managed to refloat a different group of
whales following an earlier mass stranding. In total, more than 650
pilot whales have beached themselves over two days on Farewell Spit
at the tip of the South Island. About 350 of the whales were dead,
100 were refloated by volunteers and more than 200 managed to swim
away unassisted.
(AP, 2/11/17)(SSFC, 2/12/17, p.A4)
2017 Feb 11, North Korea
launched a missile from an area called Panghyon in its western
region just before 8 a.m. (2300 GMT Saturday). It flew about 500 km
(300 miles). Japan’s PM Shinzo Abe called the launch "absolutely
intolerable" and said North Korea must comply with UN Security
Council resolutions. Pres. Trump speaking alongside Abe said that
the USA is behind Japan, our great ally, 100 percent.
(Reuters, 2/12/17)
2017 Feb 11, A top Philippine
official said police have sacked nearly 100 policemen since the
start of the year because they were found to be drug users.
(AP, 2/11/17)
2017 Feb 11, In Poland hundreds
of protesters with flags and banners marched in downtown Warsaw
against the ruling party's plan to enlarge the capital by
incorporating 32 neighboring municipalities.
(AP, 2/11/17)
2017 Feb 11, Police in Sicily
confiscated four olive companies, farmland, villas and other
property that anti-Mafia prosecutors contend belong to the business
empire of Italy's top Mafia boss, who has been on the run for more
than 20 years.
(AP, 2/11/17)
2017 Feb 11, South Sudanese Lt.
Gen. Thomas Cirillo Swaka resigned while telling President Salva
Kiir "you have disgraced yourself" by subjecting the conflict-torn
country to ethnic bias and "unacceptable cycles of violence."
(AP, 2/11/17)
2017 Feb 11, Spain’s PM Mariano
Rajoy was reelected as the leader of the conservative Popular Party
for a 4th term.
(SFC, 2/13/17, p.A2)
2017 Feb 11, In northern Syria
Turkish troops and Syrian rebels entered the Islamic State-held town
of Al-Bab, as government forces moved closer to the jihadist
bastion. one Turkish soldier was killed and another wounded in
clashes with IS fighters.
(AFP, 2/11/17)